


Fools' Gold Supplemental Works

by digitalcatnip



Series: Fools' Gold [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: (only for one chapter), Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Anal Sex, Disembowelment, Drowning, Drug Use, Gen, Gun Violence, Homophobic Language, Implied underage noncon, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Mention of Attempted Suicice, Other, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slurs, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:14:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 8
Words: 37,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24799783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/digitalcatnip/pseuds/digitalcatnip
Summary: Short-form supplementals in the FG universe about some of the characters either before or after the story!  Mostly about Ben and Toby's backstory, and usually inspired by a particular song or two.  I will be tagging every work's tags on this fic but not all of them are explicit etc, so I will put the individual chapter warnings in the pre-fic notes for each chapter so you know what's coming!
Series: Fools' Gold [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1793713
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	1. New Year's Eves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _She thought she was doing them a favour. They thought she was trying to make them someone they didn’t want to be. They’d drank a soda, she’d had whiskey._
> 
> Ash and Alexis take a drive to avoid the fireworks on New Year's Eve. Post-novel. 
> 
> Word count: 2776  
> Chapter Warnings: Discussion of PTSD, Discussion of past alcoholism.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _And as for what it takes  
>  To make it through another holiday  
> For the rest of your New Year's Eves I'm free_  
> \- New Year's Eves - Greg Laswell

“They’re doing fireworks in the town centre,” Ash said, absently, looking at their phone.  
It was meant to sound casual, but when Lex looked up at them from her spot on the couch, she could see the little lines behind their mouth that were only there when they were stressed.  
“Ya wanna go somewhere?” she asked.  
They didn’t respond, but their lips thinned further.  
She slid a bookmark between the pages of her novel. “We can go drive.”  
Driving was the easiest way to deal with it. Get out of the house, see the country, turn the music up really really loud in the car to drown out the sounds of the artillery shells that made Ash’s knuckles turn white in their lap. Lex wasn’t quite so gunshy, but she had her own reasons to seek distractions on New Year’s Eve, and having the road to focus on kept her mind off of things.  
Ash sought out a cat and found refuge in its fur, while Lex floated into the kitchen and flipped on the kettle. The air in the flat was tense, delicate as spun sugar, ready to shatter, but neither of them wanted to breach the topic. In Lex’s mind, they both knew, so why bother talking about it and getting upset. They swore they’d talk about things now, but this wasn’t like before. This wasn’t keeping secrets and feelings from one another. This was knowing exactly what the other felt but not wanting to make a thing of it.  
At least that’s how Lex thought of it. She wouldn’t know how Ash felt unless they said something, but she’d put money on their thought process being similar. They’d both learned over the past year that it almost always was.  
She selected a mug at random from the cabinet, plopping a teabag and a healthy dollop of honey into it as the countdown on the kettle wound closer and closer to zero. This fancy electric thing didn’t whistle, and it bothered her to have to keep an eye on it or else you’d end up boiling off all your water and burning the bottom, but Ash liked the look of it and it kept all the stove burners free.  
This was her third cup, and she knew Ash had noticed. She’d also been eating all the snacks in the pantry, which wasn’t all that unusual - everyone has those days they’re just bored or hungry for no reason - but a half a package of sablés in a day was. But they hadn’t sat still all day, pacing around the flat and fidgeting with their sleeves. It wasn’t quite like it had been in America, where “festivities” in the form of explosions began a week before any major holiday, but the anticipation was killing them, she could tell.  
She poured the water into the mug, swirling the teabag around with a fork, leaving it on the counter to steep. Ash was on their feet again, carrying their cat to the couch, forcing him to sit in their lap while they turned on the TV. They were shaking their leg too much, and the cat mewed plaintfully, annoyed with the movement.  
Lex could remember a time not so long ago when they’d sat on the spider-covered balcony of an apartment in Indianapolis on the Fourth of July, watching the fireworks in a rare moment of peace. Only an hour before then she’d almost murdered the son of a drug lord who just so happened to be fucking Ash’s childhood best friend. She thought she was doing them a favour. They thought she was trying to make them someone they didn’t want to be. They’d drank a soda, she’d had whiskey.  
The memory made her fingers twitch. The tea wasn’t done steeping so she paced across the kitchen, trying to think of something else but failing. She couldn’t see the couch from where she was but she knew Ash could hear her footsteps, if they were listening. The TV was playing a cooking show but that didn’t mean Ash was paying attention. They both seemed to be hyper-aware of the other today, never really focused on what they were trying to focus on.  
She felt pathetic. It’d been a year - over a year now, in total, and she still had to deal with these intrusive thoughts. On a good day she may only have a fleeting thought, a heartbeat’s urge that she can easily push away, lose herself in Ash’s smile or the vibration of a cat’s purr. But on days like today, on New Year’s Eve, it consumed her. She didn’t keep liquor in the house, but the French do love their wine, their merrymaking, and any restaurant on the street would gladly indulge her, should she ask.  
She fished the teabag out of the mug and tossed it in the bin. Half a shot’s worth of milk, stir, throw the fork in the sink to be dealt with later. She hated that she thought of measuring the milk in shots. That it was the most familiar method of measuring liquid. The tea was too hot and burned her tongue, but the scald got her mind off of what she really wanted.  
“Anything good on?” She asked, dropping next to Ash on the couch.  
Their grip on the cat loosened by the movement of the cushion, and he sprang free, flicking his tail irritatedly as he padded away to sit in a bookshelf.  
“This is just what it was on,” they said.  
On screen, a contestant on a cooking challenge game show poured brandy into a pan, lighting it on fire. Ash changed it to a ghost-hunting show.  
“When d’ya wanna head out?” She asked.  
“I’ll let you know.”  
She took another scalding sip. “If ya need ya leave way before midnight it’s fine. Don’t make yerself uncomfortable.”  
She felt Ash relax, though the lines on their mouth deepened. “I won’t.”  
They lived far enough in town that nobody would be setting off fireworks in the streets, but the distant sound of shots echoing from the nearby suburbs started just after the sun went down. They kept a brave face, riffing on the ghost show with Lex, but she felt them jump every time from where they’d wound up half-lying against her chest, her back leaned up against the arm of the couch. The tea was forgotten, not quite finished, her fingers occupied with making Ash’s hair stand in short spikes.  
It was ten thirty when they finally sighed and announced that they’d like to leave. The show in town centre would be starting soon, and they didn’t want to be around when all hell broke loose. Lex was glad for the distraction.  
The little Peugeot was a far cry from the Mustang, but it was sporty as a compact hatchback could be, painted bright yellow. At least the steering wheel was on the correct half of the car, so getting a license hadn't been a huge pain in the ass.  
Coloured fire lit the sky as they drove through the outskirts of town, Ash’s fingers intertwined with hers on the gear shift. She wished she’d sprung for automatic, just so they didn’t have to deal with the constant movement of her hands, but she had a feeling that was just her mind trying to come up with reasons for them to hate her again. She shifted down and felt their ring dig into her finger and tried to remember that they actually wore it, even now.  
She’ll never get used to how tiny Europe is. It felt like seconds ago they were in the middle of a smallish to moderately sized city, and now there was nothing to be seen but hills that, Lex was certain, would be dotted with sheep were it daytime. The fucking picturesque-ass French countryside. Like a postcard.  
At night it just looked like endless nothing beyond the headlights, though. The occasional starburst in the distance from some unseen farmhouse, but they just kept on driving until they found somewhere owned by someone too old to stay up past midnight.  
You could still hear the pops echoing through the air, but they were distant, quiet. Ash sighed when they rolled the windows down, breathing in the fresh air.  
The moon was bright out here, bathing their face in silver, highlighting the line of their jaw, the shape of their cheekbones. They’d gained the weight back, maybe even a little more, the dark circles under their eyes lightened as much as they could for a chronic insomniac. If she narrowed her eyes she could almost imagine they were the person they were when they lived in Louisiana, except that they were out here in the middle of nowhere, avoiding the fireworks because anything that sounded like gunshots made them hyperventilate. That’d been her fault, too.  
She opened a soda and her first thought was that she wished she had rum to pour into it, and blanched, nearly choking on the liquid.  
Ash turned to her, brows knit in concern. “You okay?”  
“Yeah,” she said, catching her breath. “Went down the wrong way.”  
It'd been hard to stop lying to each other. They’d spent their whole lives getting good at it. They gave her a smile that told her they knew more than they let on.  
She took a more measured drink. “Keep thinkin’ ‘bout...y’know. S’been hard today.”  
“Do the fireworks bother you now, too?”  
There’d been other holidays, but Lex had never been the one that clapped her hands over her ears and buried her face in her partner’s lap.  
“Nah. It’s just the day.”  
“Oh,” Ash said softly.  
Eleven thirty. The radio deejays were chattering about the new year, big things coming in twenty-sixteen! French politics, American politics, holidays, climate change. Ash pressed the Bluetooth button on the car’s dash, syncing to their phone. The sounds of an acoustic guitar began to drip out of the speakers.  
“I never got to be here for today before, have I?” they asked.  
Lex thought about it. They’d met mid-January, lived their whirlwind life over the summer, separated for the winter, begged forgiveness in February. “Yeah, don’t think so.”  
“Is it always...like this?”  
It sounded strange on Lex’s ears to hear that question without judgement. “Usually.”  
It wasn’t so much that she was getting older. Twenty-six wasn’t old. It was just the reminder that another year had passed and nothing had really changed. She still woke up every morning wishing she hadn’t, still had to find some way to stop thinking about alcohol, still was drowning in the guilt of the things she’d done to them. Still paralyzed by the fear that they’d get out of the car and walk into the countryside and leave her there alone, and she would just let them, because yeah, she deserved it. She always has.  
Except this time she actually said it aloud, instead of drinking it away.  
Ash shifted away from the window and leaned against her over the console. “I’m not going anywhere, Lex.”  
“Y’ain’t the first one’s said that to me an’ been lyin’.”  
“I’m the first one that made a legal promise,” they said.  
“That ain’t mean much either.”  
“It at least means a little. Divorce is a pain in the ass. And you know how much I love anything that even remotely inconveniences me.”  
She smiled despite herself. The process of getting Ash a legal ID card was like pulling teeth. She’d never seen them more miserable since the last time they were forced to converse with someone in their broken, Americanized French.  
“I’ll get over it eventually,” Lex said. “Jus’ needta be distracted ‘til then.”  
“Same,” they murmured. “We can make it our family tradition.”  
The south is all about traditions. Ash isn’t from the south, their words are tinged with just a hint of Chicago, but they occupied her spare bedroom long enough to know a little of how life was down there. The region, the state, the city, the family, the household - all down the line there were traditions. Not every family had dirty rice and gumbo as part of the Thanksgiving spread, but Lex did, because her family did, and so now when November had rolled around she’d bought a rabbit from the farmer’s market and fished the massive jar of roux from the pantry.  
But they hadn’t made anything for themselves, the two of them. They were all Lex’s old family traditions, the gumbo, the crab boil sprinkled in everything, even spaghetti sauce. This would be the first thing they’d created together. Their family tradition, of driving to the country on New Year’s Eve to listen to Ash’s folk music and stare up at the stars.  
Lex took another drink of soda to hide the thickness in her swallow. “Ya really wanna make runnin’ away to avoid our problems a tradition after all that shit last year?”  
“There’s a difference between avoiding communication and self-care,” Ash said. “No shame in removing yourself from a situation that makes you anxious.”  
They sounded like a little sage, not quite twenty-two. Imagine if she’d gotten help like they had, instead of just drinking herself to sleep every night.  
She hummed in agreement. They weren’t wrong. It was comforting out here, listening to the cattle lowing across the hills, the owls hooting in the trees. Even Ash’s emotional-ass music wasn’t the worst thing in the world, especially not with them holding her hand again. Since when did she get so damn sappy? Maybe it was the love.  
“Isn’t it kind of rebellious, skipping town to avoid what is arguably the most American of traditions? Blowing shit up to celebrate something?” Ash continued. “I feel like that’s very ‘us’.”  
“From robbin’ people as a livin’ to our most criminal action bein’ that we avoid fireworks on New Year’s,” Lex laughed. “What wild lives we lead.”  
“I’m not complaining. I’m a lot less worried about dying these days.”  
“I guess that's good.”  
They sat and looked at the stars for a little while longer. A meteor streaked its way across the sky, leaving glitter in its wake. Lex can’t articulate one concrete thing she wishes for before the thing burns up and fades out. She wonders if Ash was able to come up with something. Wishing on shooting stars was never a tradition she was good at following. Neither was 11:11. Every time she’d close her eyes she’d think of everything that she hated about life and mostly just wanted to cry.  
“It’s almost midnight,” Ash said, sitting up. They shuffled with the cooler on the floor between their legs and produced another pair of sodas. “I didn’t think champagne would be appropriate.”  
They sat there, fingers poised on the aluminum tabs, waiting for the numbers on their cell phones to read 00:00. January first, twenty-sixteen. At 02:15 Lex would officially be twenty-six. Though, she thought, it would be hours before it was midnight in Louisiana. So maybe she still had some time to prepare.  
The clock rolled over, the only fanfare the hiss of carbonation and someone’s dog barking at something in the woods.  
“Cheers,” Ash said, clinking their cans together. “To another year survived.”  
“How long ya think they gon’ be poppin’ fireworks in town?” Lex asked.  
“Hopefully not longer than an hour. People have work in the morning.”  
“Finish our drinks an’ head back, then?”  
“Mm.”  
One of the farmhouses nearby started firing big purple artillery a little too close for comfort. Ash’s hand tightened in hers.  
“Or we could go now,” they muttered.  
They rolled the windows up and Lex flipped the headlights back on. The car hiccuped to life, and she spun the wheel, executing a perfect u-turn right in the middle of the two-lane road. These little European cars and their turn radiuses.  
“We should come back here during the day,” Ash said, leaning against the window. “I wanna pet a sheep.”  
“I don’t think farmers’ll let ya pet the sheep.”  
“They will if they don’t know about it.”  
“If yer wantin’ this to become regular, ya might not wanna piss off the livestock dogs. I don’t need all my New Year’s Eves feelin’ like Cujo.”  
“It would add some excitement to the occasion. Keep your mind off of getting older.”  
“I’d really rather jus’ sit an’ talk. Drink Coke an’ look at the stars.”  
“That sounds like you’re asking me on a date.”  
“Maybe.”  
“I’ll have the check with my wife,” Ash said, smugly. “But I think, if you schedule it early, my New Year’s Eves are free from here on out.”


	2. Til I'm Not Lonely Anymore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It was easier to ignore the darkness when it was so goddamn bright outside. When your body constantly screamed its discomfort and you were forced to do something about it instead of lay in bed and rot. When there was something expected of you besides the minimum of sitting in an office chair for eight hours then finding your driver to take you to your big castle in the sky where nobody would hear the gunshot._
> 
> Ben goes to a work conference in Florida and meets someone who changes his life.
> 
> words: 8262  
> warnings: Alcohol Abuse, Mentions of drug use, Mention of disembowelment, Explicit sex, Suicidal ideation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Hold me til I'm not lonely anymore  
>  It's only the crashing of the ocean to the shore_  
> Lost Boy - The Midnight

God he hated Florida.

As if the heat and humidity wasn’t enough - the cloying salt air that filling his lungs and threatened to drown him as he walked down the street - the people made it exponentially worse. All bright colours and loud voices and smiles, smacking shoulders as they wove their ways through overcrowded sidewalks.

Ben wiped his temple for what felt like the thousandth time in the past hour, the breeze doing jack fucking anything about the sweat beading around his hairline. Granted, he probably could have worn something other than all black, or at least a short-sleeved shirt and shoes that didn’t lace up past his ankles, but the sudden shift in wardrobe likely would have just made him feel worse.

And boy did he feel  _ awful _ .

The climate was one thing. The company getaway was another. These so-called “team building seminars” that his dear father insisted on dragging the top execs to every year that Ben hated. But alas, he was in fact a top exec. Somehow. Likely just by virtue of being the boss’ son. God knows he didn’t actually do anything to earn his salary half the time. Most of Ben’s days were spent writing a few lines of code and bitching at the underlings in between smoke breaks.

This year dear Mr. Mercutio had thought a beach vacation would be a good idea. The thought was nice, anyway – it was November, and Indianapolis was already underneath six inches of snow thanks to global warming. But Florida…Florida was hot and awful as ever. And everyone was loving it. Shorts and t-shirts were dominating the hotel block they’d had reserved, and when they weren’t learning how to be better bosses and make the company more money, they were scattering to the winds to find beaches, casinos, brothels…probably tickets to Disney World.

Ben spent most of his time in the hotel room, lights turned off, cigarette in one hand, the other digging trenches into his elbows, wishing he hadn’t been considerate enough to not bring something to get high off of. Because god, he hated this. All of it. The sun, the sand, the stickiness, the sweat, the laughter. Like a slap in the face when he couldn’t stop thinking about how much he hated being fucking alive for one goddamn minute to maybe even begin to enjoy himself.

“A change in scenery may do you good,” his father had said, a look in his eye that said he was worried again, and it made Ben want to carve out his own intestines than see him look that way. So Ben agreed to go.

“Yeah. Yeah, alright.” Ben stubbed out his cigarette and lit another.

He wasn’t exactly wrong, his father. It was easier to ignore the darkness when it was so goddamn bright outside. When your body constantly screamed its discomfort and you were forced to do something about it instead of lay in bed and rot. When there was something expected of you besides the minimum of sitting in an office chair for eight hours then finding your driver to take you to your big castle in the sky where nobody would hear the gunshot.

But this was the last day, and that repetitive, empty cycle was about to become his life again. And Ben didn’t know if he could do it.

He’d gone into town to buy himself some whiskey and another carton of cigarettes, and he was hoping during the twenty minute walk he’d have enough time to think it over. Not like he hadn’t thought about it every night for the past twelve years of his life, but that was beside the point. It was evening, and the old people were crawling out of their holes to pretend they were young again, winding their ways through the red-light streets, throwing their arms over the shoulders of the prostitutes on the streets and shoving wads of cash down their low-cut shirts.

He found cigarettes easy enough, but apparently Florida was one of those states still stuck in in the twenties, because he was told he’d have to go to a completely different store to buy liquor, like some kind of fucking barbarian. Fuck.

He ducked into an alleyway to try and pull up a map on his phone to the nearest liquor store, chewing on the inside of his lip in lieu of lighting a cigarette to ease the frustration rising from his chest.

“Whatcha lookin’ for? Bet I can find it before that thing can,” said a voice to his left, a nice female alto, just a hint of grit.

“Liquor store,” Ben grumbled, continuing to scrub through results on the map.

“Ooh, plannin’ a party tonight?” She leaned over him, and he could smell her perfume. “Sounds like fun. Got someone you’re goin’ with?”

“Just me,” he replied.

The woman tapped a pin on his phone, bringing up the address to a liquor store two blocks away that closed in five minutes. “That’s a shame. Drinkin’ alone is no fun.”

It took him a few seconds to realize he was being propositioned. She was cute enough, he figured – short, dark hair, decent shape, all black and leather which was a change from the loose blouses and miniskirts he kept seeing.

He considered it, just for a moment. Then he thought about the potential little kid that didn’t need to grow up without a dad.

“Yeah, not happening,” he mumbled. His phone began to bark out walking instructions through tinny speakers.

She studied him for a moment. “Hmm, yeah, that hairdo and them pants, I shoulda known. I got some friends that swing your way though, if you decide you want some company.”

“I don’t think you have anyone quite my type, but thanks.”

“Try me. I got numbers anywhere from twinks prettier n’ you, to big dudes strong enough to choke you out and make you beg for more.”

Ben’s mouth was suddenly dry. “I’m really good for tonight.”

She hummed. “Suit yourself. Better hurry though, your party’s gonna end real fast if you don’t book it to the store.”

Ben waved his thanks over his shoulder and left.

He made it to the liquor store with minutes to spare, much to the annoyance of the clerk behind the plexiglass window. The guy scowled during the entire transaction, judgement in his eyes as Ben laid down one of the most expensive bottles of scotch on the counter and paid for it with an equally impressive roll of twenties he’d fished from his pocket.

“Have a nice night,” the cashier had said, the sarcasm dripping from his mouth as he followed Ben out and locked the door behind him.

  
  
  
  
  


It was quiet when Ben finally made it back to his temporary base, a cozy little beachfront affair that was more a motel than a hotel, with his door leading directly out to the beach. It was even more humid inside the room, the air conditioner having spent the past three hours cooling thick outside air and pumping it through the wall to clog up Ben’s nose the instant he stepped inside. He tossed the bags onto one of the two beds and sat down, unlacing his shoes and kicking them across the floor.

His shirt stuck uncomfortably to his body, and he decided he didn’t want to die sweaty, so he pulled off his clothes and ran a hot shower. The instant he stepped out he felt the sweat collect on his skin again, and he pulled on a clean shirt and jeans and combed back his hair and decided it didn’t really matter anyway.

He unscrewed the bottle of scotch and took a swig before his phone rang on the dresser. His dad’s ringtone.

“Yes?”

“Just wanted to see how you’re doing,” came elder Mercutio’s voice. “I thought I’d invite you to dinner. We’re going to a seafood place in a few minutes.”

“Aw, I’m not that hungry,” Ben lied. “Thanks though.”

“You sure? I hate to think you’re just sitting alone in your hotel room tonight. Come out and see the sights a little.”

He was trying so hard, and it hurt Ben to think about the aftermath. Rather get it over with now, instead of drawing it out for any longer.

“Yeah, I’ll just go grab a burger with one of the guys later.” He forced a laugh. “Probably a more authentic Florida Friday night experience anyway.”

“Ben, are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just…tired.”

“I can get someone to come-“

“Dad! I’m fine!” Ben snapped. “You don’t have to treat me like I’m in the psych ward, for fuck’s sake. I’m just tired.” Lies. Lies. All lies. 

“You dipped into the supply again, didn’t you.”

Ben rolled his eyes. “Does it matter? I pay for it and it helps me sleep. But no, if you really need to know I don’t have any on me.”

“Okay, okay.” His father sounded exhausted. Ben hated that he was the reason why. “If you say so. Just. Please call me if you need to.”

“I will.” He wouldn’t.

Ben hung up the phone and tossed it onto the bed, running his fingers through the wet strands of hair threatening to drip down his face. He just couldn’t let him do this in peace, did he. He just had to fucking care.

He reached for the scotch again, hand freezing mid-motion as he heard a thunking noise from outside. His head whipped to the door, finding it slightly ajar – not having quite closed and locked when he’d come back earlier.

Ben’s hand slowly reached around his back, fingers closing around the handle of the gun in his waistband.

The door swung open, revealing the slightly panicked face of his little temporary roommate, Tobias. Ben hadn’t met the kid before this week, and it was beyond him why dear father had assigned him the same room as Ben. He was probably four years Ben’s junior and still had that chubby baby face thing going on and a smile that charmed the socks off of everyone within a five mile radius. Word on the street was, however, that underneath those dirty blonde curls and cherubic lips was a juggernaut that was pretty damn good at breaking necks.

“It’s me, just me! Just me!” he said, eyes wide, hands held out in front of him in a “stop” motion. “Sorry, forgot my wallet.”

Ben eyed him. “How long have you been outside.”

“I just got here,” Toby replied, but Ben knew he was lying.

“How much did you hear.”

“N-nothing, sir!”

Ben took a step towards him. Toby stood nearly a full head above Ben, and had at least a hundred pounds on him, but Ben had a gun and Toby, to the best of Ben’s knowledge, did not. “What. Did you hear.”

Toby cowed. “Everything. But I won’t tell anyone I swear. I really am just here for my wallet – I just didn’t wanna interrupt –“

Ben dropped his hands to his side. He didn’t have the energy. It didn’t matter anyway. “Whatever.”

Toby just stood there with this stupid expression on his face, head slightly tilted like a confused dog. “Are you sure you’re okay, sir?”

“Not you too…look I'd really like to get just drunk tonight and pass out, is that too much to fuckin’ ask?”

“Sir-“

“Your wallet’s on the end table. Your buddies are gonna wonder where you are.”

Ben watched as an unreadable expression flicked across Toby’s face. “They can wait if you need them to.”

His mouth seemed to move without his permission, making decisions without him. “Fine.”

  
  
  
  
  


He’d started out asking Toby about his job, because Ben didn’t have any other idea what to talk about. He didn’t learn anything new – he started a year ago, he was muscle on deals, and was pretty good at his job. Everyone on his floor loved him and if that wasn’t just the sweetest damn thing Ben had ever heard in his life. Wonder what that felt like.

He could see it, though. The kid just had that personality that you couldn’t help but like. He also didn’t seem put off by Ben’s self-depreciative sense of humour, and that alone was something to think about. What a shame, then, that Ben would be outta here by morning.

He felt like he’d done a good job of steering the conversation away from himself, letting Toby thrill him with stories from work, his hobbies, his friends. The liquor was making Toby loose and comfortable, and he was talking with his hands now, the barest hint of a Spanish accent peeking out when he got excited. He’d stopped calling Ben “sir” at least a half hour ago.

It was comfortable, listening to someone talk about street fights with enthusiasm. Ben had never been much for them, himself. He was always more of a psychological warfare kind of guy. But he could appreciate a man who liked a good scrap, and the way Toby’s arms were occasionally making his shirt beg for mercy, Ben thought he might would really like to see him go up against someone sometime.

Ben was leaning against the headboard, scotch in his little plastic cup and a cigarette between his fingers, and Toby was sitting cross-legged across from him, face split into a wide grin as he punched his own palm to punctuate the story he’d been telling. Ben couldn’t even remember what it’d been about, but damn did it look good on him. He caught himself smiling back, eyes half closed, his limbs tingly.

Toby ended his story, finishing off his scotch. “I’m not boring you, am I? I know I have this bad habit sometimes of stealing the show from other people, especially when I’ve been drinking.”

Ah, he’d caught him staring. “Nah, nah.” Ben waved a hand lazily, feeling six feet underwater. “I could listen to you talk all night.”

Did he just turn red? “You’re probably the only person to ever say that,” he laughed.

“No way.”

Toby tilted his head again. “So what about you? Surely you’ve got some cool ass stories, being the boss’ son and all. Any good gossip from the top floor?”

Ben snorted. “Not unless you care about how many affairs the secretary’s having.”

“Okay, then…man I don’t know like, anything about you, actually. What’s some fun fact that not many people would know?” He grinned.

Maybe it was the liquor. Maybe it was just them big brown eyes and the knowledge that none of this would matter in the morning. Ben leaned back against the headboard, taking one last long drag from his cigarette and exhaling slowly, dramatically, before stubbing it out. “I’m an orphan.”

Ben heard Toby suck the air back into his lungs. “Oh. Shit.”

“Yep. Real dad bailed when I was…I dunno, ten? Mom tried to hold it together but I think she got like, kidnapped into trafficking or murdered or some shit when I was a teenager ‘cause she just wasn’t home when I got back from school one day and I never saw her again. Made it on the street for a few years before I got picked up by the boss and he adopted me.” Ben poured himself more scotch. “Dunno why, but I guess I’m grateful. Kept me from starving, anyway.”

“I was expecting you to tell me something like…you were secretly a cat person or you hated cheese or something, fuck.”

Ben chuckled. “I thought you were supposed to tell your deepest darkest secrets when you’re doing this kind of shit.”

“I dunno, sure, but you can’t just lead in with that! You’re supposed to like, tell me who you have a crush on or something first!”

“We aren’t schoolgirls, Toby,” Ben said, feigning seriousness. “We’re two grown ass men drunk in a hotel bed.”

Oh, he looked good flushed like that. “D-don’t say it like that!”

“Like what?”

“Just- never mind.”

Ben took smug satisfaction in the way Toby was shuffling around. He sighed dramatically, looking up at the ceiling. “You talk some more.”  _ I want to get lost in your voice again, _ said Ben’s stupid ethanol-addled brain.

“Aw, c’mon, I’ve been talking so much and you’ve only said one thing about yourself.”

“And it was a doozy, wasn’t it? Only like three people know that about me. You’re lucky.”

Toby looked like he was going to say something but thought better of it. “Fine, I’ll ask a question. Why’d you buy super expensive whiskey just to drink it alone in your hotel room?”

Oh, sweetheart. If you thought the thing about being an orphan was heavy…

“Had a shit day and wanted to make myself feel better.”

“What happened?”

He had that tone to his voice that made it sound like he actually fucking cared what had made Ben’s day bad and Ben hated him for it.

“Nothing. Brain just sucks.”

“Oh.”

Ben shrugged. “Not a big deal really. Some days are shit, so you get smashed and sleep it off.” Every day, rinse and repeat until nothing works anymore unless you’re shooting it into your veins.

“I hope I helped you feel a little better, anyway.” Toby’s voice was so soft and kind and Ben wished he could hear it every shit night he had for the rest of his life, and then he realized that his wish had already come true.

“Yeah. Yeah you did.”

Toby’s smile lit up the room. God damn.

Ben’s mouth opened, and he felt himself about to say something very, very stupid. “Listen, I know you like, had plans and shit, but uh-“

“I really didn’t; they’ve probably already forgotten about me.”

“Good. Great. So you wouldn’t wanna just stay here for the night then, would you.”

“This is my room too you know.”

“Right. Right. Duh.” Stupid stupid  _ stupid _ . That’s how this kid will remember him forever now, the boss’ stupid son who forgot who his fucking hotel roommate was ‘cause he got too drunk and spilled his guts too early-

“I can stay on this side of the room though if you want.”

Now he was smiling and cocking his head like a goddamn golden retriever and his stupid horrible hair was falling over his eye and Ben just noticed the freckles that splashed across his nose and he wanted to fucking slap this kid for being so goddamn pretty.

“If you don’t wanna be alone, and all.”

The sound of Toby’s voice rattled something inside Ben’s brain, and he decided that his plans could wait a little while longer.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


He looked even better with his shirt off, Ben thought, leaned back again on the headboard. He could feel the world around him starting to spin a little, the alcohol catching up to him finally. Fuck if he was letting it drop him right now, though, not with all this going on at his feet.

Toby was six feet and some change and built like a brick wall, Ben could see now. That kind of deceptive strength that consisted of rock-hard pecs hiding underneath a layer of padding thick enough to make idiots think you weren’t entirely capable of murdering them with your hands.

God, Ben wanted him to wrap one of them around his throat and push his face into the wall. He quickly arrested the thought, pulling one knee closer to his chest.

Ben found himself utterly transfixed by the way Toby’s back muscles moved under his skin as he tossed his shirt onto the opposing bed and ruffled his fingers through his hair. His mouth was dry. His skin felt sweaty even though he’d just taken a shower. He should probably take his shirt off too, but would that be too forward? What even were they about to do here? They hadn’t really discussed the plan, and Ben had been sleeping in his clothes all week.

Toby turned around to face Ben just as he finished unbuttoning his shirt and let it slide off of his shoulders and onto the floor. Another sharp intake of air.

“Sorry, that’s uh. Not what I was expecting.”

Ben tossed the shirt across the room to land next to Toby’s. “Impressive, ain’t it?”

“That from work, or…?”

Ben looked down at the scar that dominated the left half of his torso, the skin pinched into red lines that still looked raw as the day the stitches came out. He suddenly felt very exposed, which was hilarious considering he was still wearing the minimum amount of clothing required to be publicly acceptable.

“Nah. Some punk kid in a street gang thought it’d be hilarious to call my mom a whore when I was fifteen and I jumped him. He had a knife on him, and I ended up getting to see what my intestines looked like in person. Did you know they writhe like snakes almost constantly? It feels incredibly weird when you’re trying to hold ‘em all in.”

“Jesus _ Christ _ , Ben.”

“I was homeless by then so I gave the hospital a fake address and number and skipped town after they discharged me. I almost feel sorry for the poor sap who got saddled with that bill.” He pressed his fingers to the mark. It still made his stomach jump. “Thought I was gonna die.”

Toby’s face was twisted into something that was trying not to be pity and failing. Ben knew. His life was a fucking shitshow and that’s why he never talked about it. He didn’t want people feeling sorry for him, for what he’d been through. It didn’t matter. No amount of empty apologies and so-called words of encouragement would change the past. He waited for Toby to say the same damn words they always did. Instead, Toby leaned forward and pressed his mouth to the scar, and Ben felt the air rush from his lungs.

“You didn’t though,” he said softly, sliding his hands up Ben’s hips to his waist. “You survived.”

Ben’s brain took its leave about that time, bidding him a curt farewell and jumping ship before he was able to make some shitty nihilistic joke and ruin the mood. Maybe it was for the best. Toby’s hands felt warm against his skin, and Ben found it grounding, somehow, the pressure of someone else’s fingertips in his sides. Holding him in place in this moment, keeping him still.

Toby’s mouth moved upwards, ever so gentle across Ben’s stomach, his sternum, the barest hint of teeth against his throat that made his breath catch again. He hesitated for a moment above Ben’s face, apparently trying to decide if whatever was happening was worth kissing over, and Ben made up his mind for him by leaning up and closing the gap himself. Toby kissed sweet too, too gentle, like he discovered his strength the hard way and was now so painfully aware of how easily he could break everything around him. And Ben seemed so delicate in comparison, all ribs and collarbones and long thin limbs ready to snap if he so much as breathed the wrong way.

Ben wasn’t about that shit. He sunk his teeth into Toby’s lip and tasted blood.

That seemed to get the point across. Toby dropped his weight, pressing Ben into the bed, his fingers reaching up to dig into Ben’s thick black hair and pull. The sound he made was one that could only be described as a purr.

The kid was a quick learner. Ben didn’t have to say a goddamn thing and he was doing everything right just with the occasional nudge and approving grunt. They stayed how they were for what felt like eternity, legs threaded together, hands wandering wherever they pleased. It was a nice way to spend the evening, underneath someone attractive. Ben stopped trying to hide the fact that he was enjoying himself.

He was not impressed with the noise his throat made when Toby finally broke away, lifting himself up on his elbows, fingers still rubbing little circles into Ben’s scalp.

“So, uh.”

Ben gave him a crooked smile. “Uh?”

“We didn’t really like…talk about…this…” he started, clearly flustered. “How…far…”

“How far this was gonna go?”

“Yeah. Yeah that.”

Ben looked up at him. He’d really tried not to think about it, what he was doing. These self-destructive actions that were nothing but attempts to fill the hollow inside of him for a few precious minutes. He’d checked off drugs and alcohol already – the only other box left empty was sex.

He decided he would give himself the chance to find out if it’d work.

He threaded his arms around the back of Toby’s neck, pulling him into another kiss, more teeth than before.

“Fuck me,” he growled, and he felt the grit in his voice prickle Toby’s skin.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


He thought the kid was going to ignite. Their teeth clicked together but Ben didn’t even quite have time to finish thinking about how that was a wholly unpleasant sensation before Toby ground his hips down against Ben’s and all rational thought flew directly out of the window and into the Atlantic Ocean. Toby was a safe level of rough with him – one hand knotted in Ben’s soft, unstyled hair and pulling his head back to grant access to his neck, the other planted firmly on his ass.

“No marks,” Ben breathed, and Toby decided to trail his way back down Ben’s torso instead, pausing briefly to ghost his fingers over the scar before his hand slid between Ben’s thighs, running over the lines of the muscles in his legs. Ben had to force himself not to lift into that pressure like a goddamn teenager.

Toby’s fingers were very good at unbuttoning jeans. “Anything I need to know about before I go any further?”

“I’ve got incredibly pale legs,” Ben laughed, breathless.

Toby might have said something like “I think I can handle that,” but Ben couldn’t hear anything over the rush of blood in his ears as Toby slid a hand into his waistband. Heat radiated across Ben’s skin as Toby stroked him, pausing only to run his free hand down Ben’s long, thin legs, threading off the remaining length of his jeans. His hands were warm, but Ben learned soon that his mouth was even warmer. He sucked air between his teeth as Toby took him nearly to the hilt and tried not to make it obvious that the last time he’d been touched like this was years ago.

Slowly his heart rate got under control as Toby found his rhythm, and Ben let himself relax into it, knotting his fist into those thick curls and clenching whenever Toby did something right. He closed his eyes and focused on the heat and suction of Toby’s mouth, the buzz in his head slowly fading away, leaving only impulse and the roll of his hips remaining. He could hear his breath rattling out of his already-ruined lungs, punctuated by gasping swears whenever Toby worked him over with his tongue.

He could have been satisfied just with this, he thought, and even the thought took its time rolling out of his head, a languid contentment that radiated out of his extremities and warmed the air around him. It’s Friday. It’s Florida. But then Toby got his hands involved and everything went a little fuzzy.

Ben didn’t bother asking how, why, or from whence Toby had gathered the required equipment. All he knew was that if he started thinking too hard about what Toby was doing with his wrist, he was going to lose his mind. A person gets so used to having to keep track of all the moving parts themselves that when they’re actually allowed to lay back and enjoy someone else doing the work, it’s like sensory overload.

Toby wanted to take his time. Ben let him get two fingers deep before he decided he really needed more than that, and fast.

“When I said ‘fuck me’, I didn’t mean with your fingers,” he said, his voice deep and thick. His words were punctuated with a sharp yank to the fistful of hair in his hand.

The heat and friction was taken away far too quickly and Ben  _ whined _ , and god damn that was embarrassing.

Toby gave him a lopsided smile that was somehow both apologetic and patronizing as he shuffled half off the side of the bed to unbutton his pants and kick them aside. Ben propped himself up on his elbows to lend himself a better view; he wanted to fully appreciate this moment because it probably wouldn’t happen again.

Shit. If Ben had thought the dude’s _ arms  _ were murder weapons, nothing on earth could have prepared him for the sight of Toby’s _ legs _ . The muscles flexed so nicely under his skin as he rolled on the condom and slicked himself up, chewing the inside of his lip at the sensation. Ben must’ve been giving him quite a look because when Toby turned back to face him, he flushed so bright Ben thought he might glow.

Like a languorous housecat, Ben rolled over onto his stomach, a rumble rolling up from his chest as Toby’s hands immediately slid up the back of his thighs to his ass, fingers curling around his hip bones, thumbs pressing into the dips in his lower back. He could hear Toby’s breathing accelerate behind him, and took no small satisfaction in that fact. He pushed back up into Toby’s hands and dropped his knees a little wider and had about three seconds to come to grips with what he was doing before Toby pushed into him.

Ben had been in middle school when he’d finally come to accept the fact that brushing shoulders with certain boys in his classes lit him up just as much as the girls did, but it wasn’t until after he’d been adopted that he was able to really explore the concept of gay sex. He’d spent more than one late night sneaking online from his dad’s office computer, fighting 2.5mbps buffer times to watch videos of shit he’d never even considered a possibility. The subsequent experimentation was equally as educational.

He’d had a decade to learn how to fuck himself and it still was absolutely no comparison to the feeling of actually being underneath another man.

His back arched involuntarily and Toby swore through gritted teeth behind him.

“Been a while?” he asked, a hint of breathless laughter in his voice.

“Yeah,” Ben mumbled, face buried into the crook of his arm. It was a lie, but he would shoot himself before he admitted to anyone that he’d never fucking had sex before. 

Not that he wasn’t interested in the idea. Women were easy, but the thought of accidentally knocking someone up made him feel like he was going to vomit every time he put his hands on them. Men usually didn’t get pregnant, but they were  _ dangerous _ , and it wasn’t worth the risk of getting your neck slit and thrown in an alley to bleed out if you weren’t deadly careful about who you approached. Not even being the boss’ son granted you that kind of immunity. 

It was better to just stick to disappointing the daughters of some brown-nosing corporate shill trying to get to his dad’s money through his dick.

Years later Ben still wouldn’t be able to say why he’d done it now, here, with him.

It was a lot. All that pressure and friction and the feeling of Toby’s hands digging trenches into his hips, the sound of their breathing and the slide of skin on skin, it was nearly overwhelming. Ben’s hands didn’t know what to do, alternating from grabbing fistfuls of bedsheets to combing through his hair, pulling it away from his face, trying to help himself breathe. Toby was still too fucking sweet about everything, starting out so considerately slow it made Ben’s thighs shake, and Ben ground himself into his hips to try and get his point across.

They groaned in unison as Toby finally bottomed out, leaning over Ben’s back, his breath hot on his neck. One hand slid from his hip up to hook around his chest, holding him closer, burying his face in Ben’s hair, seemingly enraptured with everything that was happening. Ben wished he could be that relaxed. He had to concentrate very hard on breathing because if he didn’t he’d either lock up entirely or start hyperventilating and pass out. 

Toby nipped at the back of Ben’s neck and the sound that came out of his throat didn’t sound human. He didn’t have time to think about how he’d made it before Toby clamped down on his nape and lightning shot down his spine like he’d been tased.

He wasn’t exactly sure if it felt good yet, but the longer Toby fucked him the closer he got to thinking it did. There was a rawness that Ben was positive was going to follow him into the next day, but somewhere under the discomfort he could feel something that made him want to chase it, to angle his hips in such a way that- Oh. Now _ that _ definitely was something. Ben put his fist into his mouth and bit down; he’d be damned if he was about to start whining like a bitch in a porno just because he’d found his sweet spot.

Time was moving in bizarre ways, and Ben had no idea how long they stayed like this, so caught up in one another, Toby’s mouth on his neck, his shoulders, nails digging into his skin. It felt like both seconds and an eternity passed when Toby shifted their positions again, taking Ben in his free hand and stroking him in time with his thrusts.

The extra stimulation sent him nearly over the edge, and he bit down on his knuckle so hard he broke the skin, but it still wasn’t enough to stifle the groan that rolled up from deep within his chest. That must have sparked something inside Toby, because he lifted himself up and away from Ben’s back to let himself thrust deeper, digging his fist into Ben’s hair and pushing him into the pillow. Ben pulled his arms underneath his chest and tried to lift up, to fight back, but Toby was  _ strong _ , his elbow locked like a rod pinning Ben down. 

The fingers in his hair tightened as Toby quickened the pace, pushing Ben closer to the line between pain and pleasure. He was starting to move on automatic, pushing back to meet Toby halfway with every thrust, fingers clenching the sheets, his body tensing and releasing in rhythm. “Jesus _ fuck _ ,” Toby groaned, his movements stuttering. Ben turned his head just enough to see over his shoulder, and the sight of Toby flushed and panting behind him was. God that was too much. He came too fast, without warning, and it nearly punched his lights out, sparks erupting behind squeezed-shut eyes. His ears were ringing. He felt his chest rumble but he couldn’t tell if he’d actually made a sound.

Toby fucked him through it, the extra stimulation making Ben’s legs shake, and he realized the high-pitched noise he was hearing was coming out of his own damn throat. He couldn’t breathe. It was starting to hurt, but just before Ben’s brain managed to rub together the two neurons required to open his mouth and say something, Toby thrust deep one last time before bowing over Ben’s back, nails digging into his skin. His moan prickled all the way down Ben’s spine. 

And just like that it was over. Ben was dimly aware of the mess he’d made but didn’t really care that much. There was another bed in this room, after all.

Toby apologized as he pulled out, and that sensation was not one Ben liked very much, he decided. Ben rolled off to one side of the bed, biting back a scowl, because suddenly everything seemed to hurt. He tried to ignore his discomfort and instead treat himself to the sight of Toby naked again, but he quickly learned that there was absolutely nothing sexy about anything that happened after sex.

“I uh. Gotta clean up,” Toby said, grimacing down at his hand. “Gimme a minute.”

Ben wasn’t sure what Toby was planning on doing when he got back, but he wasn’t really the type for a cuddle, so he located his pants and shirt and pulled them back on. “I’m gonna have a smoke,” he announced, and didn’t bother waiting for Toby to respond before he grabbed his pack off the bedside table and pushed open the door.

  
  
  
  
  


The air was somehow cooler outside than in the hotel room, and Ben was appreciative of the breeze that blew across his skin, once again damp from sweat. The smoke instantly soothed him, and he closed his eyes and held it in, exhaling out of his nose.

He padded down to the beach and sat delicately on the sand, looking up at the sky, listening to the waves push themselves endlessly onto the shore, only to be pulled back again. There was a metaphor there somewhere, he thought. Someone smarter than he was would have to fish it out and make it work, though.

He wasn’t sure what he expected. Fanfare? Unicorns? God Himself coming down from heaven to high five Ben and give him a “congrats on the sex” cake? All his life this shit had been hyped up so much and really all he felt was sweaty and sore. What a letdown.

Still, an odd kind of clarity settled over him in the darkness. His brain was pleased with him for what he’d done, eking out a few more drops of dopamine than usual, but the realization that he’d just fucked someone as a coping mechanism was edging out the satisfaction. God that was shameful. This poor kid was having a good time and Ben had just used him because maybe, just maybe, it would quiet his demons for the night.

He drew his knees up to his chest. It…had worked, though. Sort of. For the first time in years the barrage of noise in his head was quiet, and he didn’t know what to do with that. It was terrifying, being able to hear himself think like this, to almost be able to feel something. That maybe the more he did this, the closer he’d get to being normal.

Dangerous. Dangerous thoughts for someone like him, who skipped from addiction to addiction, hoping to either fix his fucked up, diseased mind, or die trying. 

He heard the door of the hotel room open, then shut, the sound of footsteps on the wooden walkway, then crunching softly through sand. Toby dropped down next to him, crossing his legs underneath him, looking slightly disheveled, but satisfied.

“It’s nice out tonight, isn’t it?” he said, looking up at the stars.

“You’re just saying that ‘cause you got laid,” Ben quipped.

“It really is nice,” Toby said, turning to look at him, his voice playfully indignant. “But getting laid didn’t make it worse.”

Something clicked in Ben’s mind, and he felt the spite rolling up from his gut, burning his throat. He flicked his cigarette into the sand at his feet. “So, what do you want? Promotion? A raise?”

“What?”

“For tonight. You didn’t fuck me for bragging rights ‘cause I know you’d get ripped apart for being gay, so what do you  _ want _ ? I figure it’s only fair to do my best to get it for you, after all that effort.”

Toby blinked. “I don’t want anything.”

“Bullshit.”

“I really don’t, Ben. I had sex with you because I wanted to, and that’s it.”

Ben could hear in his voice that he was telling the truth, and he felt more of that horrible poison fill him up. “Lying looks bad on you, Tobias. Ruins your pretty face.”

“And anger is a poor mask to hide behind, Benvolio.”

Ben looked up at Toby, jaw tightened. How  _ dare he _ . How  _ dare  _ he try to turn this around on Ben, when  _ he _ was the one that-

Toby leaned his elbows onto his knees. “You don’t think I understand, but I promise I do. I have a friend that’s…like you. They get mad too, when someone does something they don’t think they deserve. They’re self-loathing to the point that they’d rather destroy their relationships with everyone around them than accept that someone actually cares about them and finds them worthy of their kindness.” He was gazing out into the emptiness between the ocean and the sky. “You had the same look on your face that they do when they think there’s not much point left to being alive.”

How dare he.  _ How dare he _ .

“So I guess maybe I did want something, in a way. I couldn’t live with myself if the only thing standing between you waking up tomorrow and this place turning into a crime scene was me not at least trying to help you.”

Ben’s hands were shaking in his lap. Toby’s voice was so kind and sincere and Ben hated it. He hated that he was  _ right _ . That every facet of Ben’s persona was designed to make him as unlikeable as possible, so he didn’t have to disappoint anyone when he finally did put that bullet through his head.

The venom spewed from his mouth like vomit. “Do you fuck your friend when they’re suicidal too? Or am I just special?”

“That part really was just because I like you.”

Toby looked at him, and his stupid attractive face and his stupid brown eyes and stupid hair made Ben’s heart skip a beat. “Even though I started out just wanting to ease my own conscious, I actually did have fun drinking with you.”

“I’m sure it was the drinking you enjoyed,” Ben grumbled.

“ _ Stop it _ , Ben.” Toby barked, his voice harsh, serious. “Yeah, I liked having sex with you. But more importantly I also really, _ for real _ , liked just hanging out too. You’re not as unlikeable as you think you are once you take off your douchebag armour and let yourself be yourself.”

Ben didn’t know what he was supposed to be feeling, so he dug his nails into the palms of his hands and stared at the sand.

Toby’s voice was soft when he spoke after a moment. “Sorry. That’s not really any way for me to be talking to my superiors.”

“You’re fine. I probably needed to hear it, anyway.”

They sat on the beach in silence; the only sounds the tide coming in ever so slowly, and the wind in their ears. The noise in Ben’s mind was still quiet, the weight of Toby’s body next to him was once again a grounding force he hadn’t expected. It was a feeling he decided he wanted to get used to.

“Thanks,” Ben said finally, his voice barely audible above the waves. “For all of it.”

He covered up Toby’s sound of soft confusion with his lips, savouring it before pulling away lest he forget how to breathe.

They walked back to the hotel with fingers barely intertwined and fell into the second bed together, legs tangled as tightly as their fingers in one another’s hair, and Ben thought he might drown in the feeling of him. He’d achieved something he didn’t expect tonight, and he intended to make sure he memorized this feeling, just in case he never felt it again.

  
  
  
  
  


He woke first, before the sun had properly risen, and the act of extricating his body from Toby’s arms was physically painful, knives in his chest to accompany the pins in his numbed extremities. He wished now he’d remembered to call his pilot and tell him to postpone their trip back home to later in the day. Just a few more minutes to enjoy this before real life took over again.

His gun was still in its holster in the back of his jeans, making itself known by digging uncomfortably into his asscheek. He took it out, popping open the cylinder of the revolver. A single bullet was loaded in the active chamber.

It was all he figured he’d need.

He tipped the gun back, dropping the bullet into his hand. He turned it around in his fingers for a moment before setting it on the bedside table. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


His father’s eyes were glistening as Ben stepped out of the limo and onto the tarmac, and he gave Ben a smile that said he’d been worried he wouldn’t see his son alive. And for once, Ben returned the smile before stepping onto the plane and disappearing into the sky.

  
  
  
  
  


Toby woke up alone, sunlight streaming through the half-opened window. Outside, he could hear his coworkers chattering amongst themselves as they unpacked their rooms and loaded into the charter bus for the trip to the airport.

He was more than a little disappointed, but he supposed it wasn’t that realistic to think that someone like Ben would stick around. They’d had their fun, their two AM heart-to-heart, and now it was over. And that’s just how it was. It gave him a weird feeling, the thought that he’d now become someone’s one-night stand. It settled like a rock in his stomach as he showered and began to pack up his belongings. His shoes from by the door, his clothes from the floor by the bed he’d shared, his phone from the-

His hand stopped halfway as he caught sight of something on the bedside table, so small it almost didn’t register that it was there. The copper glint of a small-caliber handgun bullet. He picked it up, and it was cold in his fingers.

Underneath it was a notepad with the hotel letterhead, and on it was written in sloppy but deliberate handwriting:  _ Thank you for helping me make up my mind. _

His hand tightened around the bullet and he sunk to the edge of the bed, head dropping to his chest.

  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
  
  


Ben leaned back in his office chair, idly spinning himself back and forth with a foot, one hand holding a cigarette and the other getting the nails chewed off of it by his dumb fidgety mouth. He didn’t know why he was so fucking nervous. It was just a business meeting. He was just gonna ask the guy if he wanted to take on a new position, then hand him some paperwork and shove him out the door and at the mercy of his secretary. He did this like, every other day.

He finished demolishing his index nail and moved on to his middle. If he didn’t show up soon, Ben wouldn’t have any more fingers left to. Well. Whatever you do with fingers. Touch shit, he figured.

Maybe he wouldn’t be so anxious if he hadn’t spent the last week and a half getting himself excited for shit that wasn’t set in stone yet. There was only one person on this planet Ben felt like he wanted around him often enough to be his bodyguard, but it’d been…fuck like two months since they’d even seen one another. It was near impossible to forget  _ who _ Ben was, when he sat the desk he did, but the guy had probably forgotten everything  _ about _ him except his name and what he looked like, after all this time. Either that or he remembered, but only because Ben had made such a shit impression.

He bit the tip of his finger.  _ No, stop it _ , he told himself.  _ It’s fine. There’s no way he forgot you, because you thought it’d be a good idea to get on your hands and knees for him, and, good or bad, there’s no way he’d forget that. _

Two months. Two months and he still thought about it. Still chased that moment of clarity and stillness he’d felt on the beach. Nobody else had come close, even when he closed his eyes and told them to shut up so he couldn’t tell that it was the wrong voice. He gave up after three. He’d rather deal with jerking off alone in his bedroom than go through that again. 

Not that he was delusional enough to think anything was going to happen between them now, anyway. He figured that the pining would suck at first, but this was strictly business. He needed protection, and this guy was at the top of the list of people Ben would trust with his life, however insignificant it may be. 

Ben wouldn’t complain if _ he  _ wanted to pick up where they left off, though. Not at all.

He moved to his ring finger just as the speakerphone on his desk crackled to life.

“A Mr. Laertes is here to see you, sir,” said his secretary’s voice.

“Send him in,” Ben said, trying to keep the tremor out of his voice.

His heart jumped to his throat as the door swung open and a familiar mop of blonde curls stepped through. He’d let them grow out a little. And he was wearing button-up and rain gear and there were drops still on his shoulders from the downpour outside and just his presence was lighting the entire room up like sunshine.

Toby’s eyes met his, and he smiled, a real genuine smile that made Ben’s knees weak and his heart soar out of his chest as he opened his mouth and said, with all the familiarity of someone he’d known all his life: “Hey, Ben.”


	3. Cold Affliction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The first time he’d been in a hospital was when he was born, presumably, but he didn’t remember it. The first time he remembered, he had fallen off his bike and dislocated his shoulder, and despite the fact that it took seconds for the man in the white coat to jam it back into place, the bill was well over the household’s monthly earnings. Ben had woken up in the night to the sound of his mother crying over the kitchen table more than once. He put the training wheels back on the bike, in secret._
> 
> Ben struggles to adjust to having someone live in his house.
> 
> Word count: 4989  
> Chapter Warnings: Suicidal ideation, disemboweling, explicit gun violence, drug use, brief mention of sexual activity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _I'm trying to hold it together  
>  Head is lighter than a feather  
> Looks like I'm not getting better  
> Not getting better_  
> Coming Undone - Korn

Ben never liked hospitals. The too-white walls, the too-loud floors, the buzz of fluorescents hanging in the air, filling your head. The smell was the worst, somehow reeking of both sterility and disease at the same time, constantly reminding you that you weren’t here for fun, for a good time. You were here because either you, or someone you cared about, was dying.

The first time he’d been in a hospital was when he was born, presumably, but he didn’t remember it. The first time he remembered, he had fallen off his bike and dislocated his shoulder, and despite the fact that it took seconds for the man in the white coat to jam it back into place, the bill was well over the household’s monthly earnings. Ben had woken up in the night to the sound of his mother crying over the kitchen table more than once. He put the training wheels back on the bike, in secret.

The last time he’d been in a hospital, he had stumbled into the ER by himself, one hand smearing blood across the glass doors, the other trying vainly to keep his intestines from spilling out onto the floor. They’d kept him there for weeks, tied to a thousand machines that kept his pitiful body alive and pumped it full of drugs. They kept him from feeling the ache in his midsection, but the snakelike slide of guts between his fingers was not so easy to forget. He didn’t get to see the bill for that; he’d signed his discharge papers with a name that wasn’t his and wrote down the address for someone living in Noblesville before walking out with an oxycodone prescription he filled legally once, illegally four more times.

His father (not his real one, that bastard could die in a fire,) was understanding enough to realize that hospitals gave him panic attacks and suggested they go to a clinic instead for all those blood draws and questionnaires one needs as a growing teenager. It still smelled sterile, but the lights were silent and he didn’t feel like he was going to die just from breathing. They had to give him a shot that made him sick, but this time there was no worry about the bill.

Most people are generally afraid of ending up in a hospital due to an injury from being alive. That’s why Ben had a steel-reinforced limo and worked a job where the only injury he’d ever probably get would be a bullet to the head, which was exactly where he wanted it anyway.

  
  
  
  
  


“You want a beer?” Toby asked, looking over at Ben from his spot on the couch.

_ No _ , Ben’s brain said, because it was stupid and hated when anyone was nice to him. “Sure,” said his mouth, and he decided to let the beer be his reward for actually accepting the kindness.

Toby padded to the kitchen, and Ben heard the fridge door open and close.

He’d been here...five? Six months? Living in that little servants’ quarters Ben still couldn’t believe was actually a feature of this penthouse. It was incredibly awkward, the first month or so, trying to sort how this dynamic was going to work. Toby trying to figure out how far Ben’s tolerances went, learning his routine, how he liked his shirts pressed. Ben struggling to be comfortable with the sounds of another living creature in his house, of letting him know more about how his mind worked than anyone else on the planet, because it was his job. The two of them stumbling through every interaction, every conversation, trying to figure out who they were when they were sober and alone.

Toby handed Ben a bottle and sat down, closer this time. Almost touching. Ben felt every molecule of his body seize up, but Toby looked casual, head tipped back as he took a long swig of his beer, the TV remote in his other hand.

One of the first things they bonded over was crime movies, which Ben thought was ironic, probably. He still didn’t quite know what ironic meant. But it was  _ something _ , at least; the son of a drug lord and his bodyguard sitting on a couch, drinking beer, and riffing about how unrealistic Reservoir Dogs was, regardless of its entertainment quality.

Ben was more into the violent ones, with lots of shooting. Toby liked heists. The Tarantino classic had come up on cable that night, and Toby had gotten all excited and practically forced Ben to watch it with him, because, he said, it was the perfect overlap of their two tastes. 

Toby unpaused the movie, and the people on the screen continued to bleed all over the empty warehouse set. So far, Toby had been right. Less time setting up a convoluted heist, more time yelling and cutting off of ears while hinting at what had actually gone wrong. Ben could swear this group of colour-coded idiots were all based off of men in his employ.

Ben knew it was going to be weird the second Toby agreed to this arrangement. You don’t just fuck someone on a whim as a coping mechanism then ask them to move in with you (platonically, in a business way,) a few months later and it _ not _ be weird. It was probably more weird for Ben than Toby. Toby probably wasn’t constantly aware of every little microexpression on Ben’s face, every tiny movement of his hands. Probably not constantly imagining the memory of the sounds he’d made in the lamplight of a Florida hotel room.

They’d started on opposite ends of the couch and slowly gravitated towards one another. Ben tried to justify it by fishing a blanket out of the hall closet and throwing it over his knees. He’s cold, it’s the anaemia or whatever else is wrong with him that will eventually kill him someday. Definitely not him realizing he hasn’t had meaningful contact with another human in...ever. Actually. Parents notwithstanding. He’s hot under the collar but pulls his feet up under the blanket anyway.

It was probably just coincidence on Toby’s end, though. It’s natural to gravitate to the center of a couch - it’s the most comfortable spot, generally, where the cushion is softest, or whatever. Though Ben usually preferred the edge, where he could pull his legs up and lean against the armrest. It was safe in the corners. Protected. 

He’s reading into it too much and he knows it.

“What does he think he’s doing by telling the old guy not to shoot Orange? Dude’s gonna die anyway, just put him out of his misery,” Toby says, bringing the bottle up to his lips again. “He’s been dying all movie.”

They’d already riffed on how the blood was still red instead of brown and crusty, smearing like thick water instead of like half-dried gel and clumping between their fingers.

On screen, a lot of guns fire at once.

“Thank fucking god,” Toby mumbles.

It’s weird the way his mind works, Ben thinks. He’s not flinching at the gore because he’s seen it all before in real life, but his eyebrows are knit up just a little at the thought of White leaving the man he supposedly considered a friend to slowly bleed out on the concrete instead of ending his suffering swiftly. Ben had seen him execute people before, ruthlessly stone-faced, and in the same breath tie a tourniquet around a young lackey’s leg and dial an ambulance for them before ducking back into the car and leaving. Gun down a gang in the morning, shower and go to church in the evening. It would never stop giving Ben whiplash, the morality of the man he sat next to.

“Well that was grim,” Ben said as the credits started to roll. “But you were right, it was violent.”

“Most of his movies are,” Toby replied. “I think I have Pulp Fiction somewhere in a box. You might like that one, too.”

Ben finished his beer. “So what’s next?” he asked, more to the TV than Toby, waiting patiently for the credits to be sequestered to a corner of the screen and the cable channel to announce what was up next. Ocean’s Eleven, apparently. Must’ve been crime night.

“Nope, pass,” Ben said, snatching the remote out of Toby’s hand before he could protest. “Seen it, too much dumb heist shit for me.”

“Oh come on,” Toby whined. “That one’s a classic!”

“It’s two hours of setup for five minutes of satisfying crime. I’m not in the mood for a nap, I want entertainment. I want to see fictional men suffer.”

“Sadist,” Toby said into his beer, grinning.

Ben opened Netflix and scrubbed through the New Releases, looking for anything that caught one of their eyes.

“You seen the trailer for that Keanu Reeves movie that’s coming out?” Toby asked.

“He’s still making movies?”

“It looks interesting. Guns, fancy cars, Russians. Someone kills Keanu's dog and he goes on a rampage.”

“Over a dog?”

Toby gives him a look Ben can’t place.

“I don’t hate dogs,” he explains, trying desperately to recover. “Just not a huge animal person in general. Knowing some people though, I guess I can see how someone would go postal over a dog.”

“What  _ would  _ get you to go postal?” Toby asked. He’d been doing this lately, Ben had noticed. Asking him little questions about himself, trying to get through Ben’s shell and into the meat of him, stick his fingers in the soft parts and swizzle them out.

Ben wasn’t used to talking about himself. There wasn’t much to say. All the juicy bits he’d spilled over scotch half-naked in a hotel room, was there really anything else to him? He had no hobbies, no real personality. His days before Toby moved in had consisted of going to work, staring at his computer for eight hours, coming home, getting high, and laying barely conscious in bed until he sobered up or the sun rose, whichever came first. Anything more than that and he’d think too much and blow his brains out.

“Dunno. Not a whole lot that's that important to me,” was the answer he gave, not really looking at the screen anymore. “Closest is like, if someone snitched on us or something and fucked me over monetarily, but even that’s just…” He waved his hand.

“I’ve got a family,” Toby said. “They don’t really know what I do, but it’s not hard to find them, y’know, if someone wanted to.”

He seemed to sense the fact that Ben’s brain had just short-circuited. “Like, my mom and my sister. Not...not like  _ my _ family. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Ben mumbled. He selected something at random, an old De Niro film, to fill the silence.

“Another beer?” Toby asked, almost nervously, jumping up too fast.

“Sure.”

When he sat down again, they were even closer, Toby’s broad shoulder bumping against Ben’s as he handed over a fresh bottle, mist still curling out of the mouth.

Ben wonders if he knows. If it’s conscious, or if he’s just getting buzzed and gravitating towards him because that’s what people _ do  _ when they are comfortable in a space. He leans back and props up his feet on the coffee table (and Ben would fuss at him for it any other time but right now it’s mesmerising,) and drapes one arm over the back of the couch, fingers brushing Ben’s shoulder before he adjusts, pulls away, not even acknowledging that Ben’s skin is  _ on fire  _ just from that.

He hates himself when that’s what he thinks about later in bed with the blanket kicked off around his feet and the door safely locked.

  
  
  
  
  


He thought it’d be easy to just  _ ask him _ , but it wasn’t. For christ’s sake they’d already fucked once, technically twice, if you count Ben’s solo adventure between Toby’s legs after they’d gotten sandy and sappy on the beach. It’d been easy then, so why wasn’t it now? You know he's attracted to you. How hard is it to just lean against the wall and ask if he wanted to go upstairs and ruin your sheets?

  
  
  
  
  


They went see the movie about the man whose dog was killed and enacted his revenge in the form of seventy-seven dead hitmen. Ben still thought it was a little ridiculous, but he could at least understand the need to save face. He wouldn’t let the idiot son of some Russian mobster spit in his face like that, either. Plus, according to Toby, anyway, the fight choreography was spot-on.

It was a little treat to himself, and to Toby, for sitting with him for six hours in a tattoo parlour in downtown while Ben had his shoulder painted black. It wasn’t done yet, it would need two more sessions, but it was pleasantly sore now underneath his coat as they walked back to the car from the theatre.

“Oh, you're not alone today!” the artist had chirped when they walked in, eyes bright.

Ben didn’t know how to introduce Toby - he wouldn’t call them friends, per se, but coworkers seemed too impersonal for what they had become now.  _ Bodyguard _ had implications, and he didn’t want her thinking he was anything more than someone with enough money to pay for a lot of blackwork that was definitely just for the art of it and not for how the sting of the needle filled his mind and drowned out the screaming.

“Toby,” he said, and smiled as he shook her hand.

“He’s new,” Ben grumbled, mentally kicking himself the second the words came out of his mouth. Toby laughed nervously, and the tattoo artist smiled knowingly. She called Toby his partner for the rest of the session, and Ben was in no position to argue.

  
  
  
  


They flew to Chicago for the weekend, in Ben’s plane. It was Toby’s mom’s birthday, or something, and he needed to see her. Ben had packed his nice suit and leather shoes, because this wasn’t  _ really _ meeting his family, but he had an image to uphold. Toby spent the flight giving him the rundown - telling him all about his little sister and his mom and the dad that he stayed in touch with but hadn’t been really in the picture since Julia was a baby. Ben expected there to be animosity in his face, but Toby seemed at peace with it. Ben didn’t know what that felt like.

“It’ll take about ten minutes to get to the hospital,” Toby said, checking his watch. “So we should leave as soon as you get dressed.”

Ben froze in mid-motion, the buzzing starting around the base of his skull and radiating down his spine.

“What?” Toby asked, noticing, head tilted to the side.

“I can’t go,” Ben finally said, forcing his body to finish the movement he’d started.

“What?” Toby asked again, slightly more offended.

Ben’s mind scrambled. “Wouldn’t want her to get the wrong idea about us,” he finally said, because somehow in his stupid brain, this seemed much less offensive than saying that hospitals made him want to die.

“I’m not exactly in the closet, you know.” His voice was soft now, almost tender. “Even if she did think we were together, it’s not like she’d blow up. And you can just say we’re just friends.”

“Rather not deal with it.” Ben was pulling his shirt back off, the cold air hitting his not-quite-healed-yet shoulder and reigniting the itching.

Toby studied him for a moment. “Okay. I’ll try to be quick.”

He held it in until Toby left, and he’d be proud of himself when he stopped convulsing, when he could catch his breath. He didn’t have anything to wash the drugs down with but water, and he willed his hands still enough to light a cigarette to fill the time before they kicked in. He felt himself sinking through the mattress, but at least, he thought, it was better than suicide.

He didn’t know how long Toby had been gone. Dimly, he heard a knock, then the sound of the connecting door of their adjoining suites opening, Toby’s voice a little frantic. Strong hands touching his face, fingers pressing into his throat to feel the pulse. How lovely they’d feel wrapped all the way around, he thought, before opening his eyes.

“Toby,” he said, mouth dry. “You’re back.”

“Ben,” is all he said, breathy and barely reigned in. No admonishment, no judgement. Just a relieved sigh beneath closed eyes, and a hand still on Ben’s chest.

“You need me to stay in here tonight?”

His hand felt like an anvil on Ben’s ribs, making it hard to breathe. But he wanted it to stay forever. “I’m okay,” he said, or at least he thought he did.

Toby always believed him, even when he really shouldn’t, and Ben wasn’t sure if he loved that or not. He wasn’t sure what he thought anymore.

“I’ll leave the door open,” Toby said, and his hand lingered just a little while longer before he stood, his fingers seeming reluctant to leave Ben’s skin.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Ben didn’t usually dream, so if anyone asked him what his worst nightmare was, he couldn’t ever really answer. His whole life was a nightmare, really, one that he could only escape through sleeping. This, he figured, was probably  _ actually  _ irony. What could be worse than living in a body that barely functioned, piloted by a brain that constantly sought its own destruction? He had more money than he could ever hope to spend, more drugs than he could possibly ingest, more opportunities for sex than he could take even if he’d wanted them, and still he wasn’t happy.

It’s a disease, the doctor said, you’re sick. Ben had felt like throwing up, the lights buzzing in his head (it had been just a clinic this time, but the lights...the lights were old.) He didn’t doubt he was sick. He couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t do anything but think about how badly he wished he could die and get it over with. They tried to give him medicine (because it’s an illness, you see,) but they made him crazy. The sensation of moving too slow and too fast at once, every emotion he forgot he had bombarding him without reprieve. His head felt like it was going to explode, and he was eighteen now, so he just refused to go back. I’ll deal with it, dad, don’t worry. I’m fine.

He often thought that his father probably regretted giving him access to all the Class-C drugs he could ever want and then some, but Ben had clung reluctantly to life regardless, reaching nineteen, twenty, twenty-one. Legal liquor gave rise to a different kind of addiction, but he was so fucked now he didn’t even care. Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four. Twenty-five came and he still didn’t know why he was here, but at least now he wasn’t dying a virgin.

Maybe his answer would have to be waking up in the morning.

It felt like it, that morning, as he drug himself to the shower to wash the grime off. The water was too hot and burned his skin but he let it, trying to feel something, anything. He got dressed with a cigarette in his mouth, lighting it as he walked down the stairs, the smell of smoke mingling with that of something that should make his mouth water. A tray of still-warm biscuits sat on the kitchen table, clearly intended for him. He chose whiskey instead.

He found Toby on the balcony, and he looked at Ben’s choice of breakfast (lunch, really,) but said nothing, just turned his face back to the sun.

“It’s finally warming up,” Toby said, drinking in the rays. He had grown paler over the winter, but the few sunny days had brought the colour back to his skin, darkened the freckles that bridged his nose and dotted his arms. And other places, Ben remembered, but he pushed that away for later.

The sun felt nice even on Ben’s skin, warming up his extremities that lately had seemed permanently cold. It’d probably do him good to sit out here for a bit while he smoked. He joined Toby in one of the patio chairs, gazing out over the city and its smog haze. The chairs were close together, and when Ben lay his arm on the armrest, their fingers nearly touched. Just a hair’s breadth apart, and it was crackling up his arm again. How hard would it be to just reach out and touch him?

“I’m gonna get a drink, you want something?” Toby said, snapping Ben’s attention from his fingers to his face. Smiling like that and he didn’t even know - because how could he? - that Ben was starving.

Ben held out his whiskey glass, and Toby took it.

“I was thinking more like a biscuit,” Toby said, without bite.

“Maybe later.”

He left the sliding door open behind him, walking in on bare feet. Ben was staring back at his own hand.

From the other side of the penthouse he heard the buzzer ring, someone wanting to come up. Toby’s voice on the intercom, asking who it was. He couldn’t quite hear the voice on the other end, but Toby announced that he would wait for them to come up, so it had to be someone they knew. Ben tried to remember who knew his address, who would have something so important to give him that they’d come to his house rather than just leaving it on his desk at the office.

The elevator dinged open, and Ben heard Toby greet whoever was inside, casual, like he knew-

The sound ripped through the penthouse and out the balcony door, driving into Ben’s ears like an archer’s bolt, knocking the breath out of him. It echoed off the vaulted ceilings and ricocheted around the tiles, sliding to a stop finally after far too many seconds.

“Shit,” he heard Toby say, and Ben was on his feet, bolting through the door into the kitchen, praying to any god who would listen that it was Toby who had fired and not someone else. It couldn’t be him leaned against the wall, spilling blood onto the floor. Not him. It couldn’t be him.

Ben caught him just before he fell, smearing a huge red mark across the stark white walls, and all that colour that he’d just put in his face draining out way, way too fast.

“Fuckin’...Matt…” Toby gasped, hand over the hole in his side. “Got away.”

“Shut up, don’t talk,” Ben said, covering Toby’s hand with his own. There was so much blood. Fuck there was so, so much blood.

“I dunno if he was here for me or you,” Toby continued, ignoring Ben’s demands. His voice sounded wet, slick, bubbling up through his throat. “Probably you.”

“I said shut up,” Ben said again, trying to hide the way his voice was shaking. “Don’t talk or you’ll choke on it.”

“But-”

Ben clamped his other hand around Toby’s mouth. “I said! Shut up!”

He peeked at the hole, sucking in air. It was big. If this hole was big, he didn’t want to think about the one coming out of Toby’s back, which was likely even more of a problem than this one. He couldn’t look. If he looked he’d fall apart and there wasn’t enough time for that right now.

“Ben,” Toby said, straining. “I…”

“Hush, please, please don’t talk.” He was begging, and he didn’t care if Toby heard the desperation in his voice. “Please.”

He could feel him fading in his arms, sinking deeper into Ben’s chest, his breaths shallow. The siren’s wail was filling Ben’s ears and his brain felt like it was on fire. Not him. Not him. His clothes were soaked through and there was nothing he could do about it. Nothing he could do about any of this.

Toby’s head lolled against Ben’s shoulder, his eyes drifting shut.

“Hey, hey, Toby, stay with me,” Ben barked, slapping his face.

Toby’s eyes opened again, but they were glassy, unfocused.

“Come on, look at me, don’t go to sleep,” he begged. “Stay with me Toby.”

“When you find him,” Toby said, softly, “Give him hell, okay?”

Ben thought he’d cried all his tears years ago, but they burned at his eyes now, scraped up through his throat. “Don’t you fucking dare die on me,” he sobbed, cradling Toby’s head in one hand, pressing his face into his hair. “I swear to god if you die I’ll kill you again with my bare hands. You’re not allowed to leave me Toby, not yet, not yet.”

Ben felt him go limp, and lost his mind completely.

  
  
  
  
  


Twice the normal dose of Xanax was required to calm him down, but they got it in him, got him to breathe again, got him to stop shaking. Time ground to a halt, then, as they left him in the waiting room alone, surrounded by all the other people who’d had tragedies that day. Looking at him with what was probably compassion in their eyes but equally as likely pity. He was sitting there, red-faced, head in his hands.

He could hear the hum of the lights but all he could smell was himself, was Toby’s blood soaked into his clothes (and he only wore black, but he could see the deepness of the stain, the brown soaked through the print on his shirt.) Sharp, metallic, a bit sour now. It may be the last part of Toby he senses, so he lets himself drown in it.

Was it irony, again, that the most contact they’d had was as Toby lay dying in Ben’s arms? Or was that something else? Ben had never been good at words, or emotions, or really anything but being cruel and hating himself. Probably why he’d spent the last half a year getting worked up over the most insignificant things. And now…

He might not get to wake up to the smell of breakfast anymore. No more late nights watching movies until they passed out. No more sunbathing on the balcony. No more drives through the city. No more awkward conversations at the tattooist’s. No more knowing he didn’t have to go home alone. 

No more  _ him _ .

It had snuck up on him, he realized, there in the hospital waiting room, listening to the speakers in the ceiling play soft rock. Like a vine it’d creeped up into him and taken root, and now he was about to lose it before he even got to see if it he could get it to bloom.

“Oh, you look like a nightmare,” said someone on the other side of the room, jokingly, to a friend who looked like they’d been smashed in the face with a bat, nose bruised and bloody.

They don’t know what a nightmare is, Ben thought. A nightmare is the thought that the last memory he was going to have of him was the life fading from his eyes. A nightmare was knowing he’d eventually have to go back to his empty penthouse and find some reason not to find that revolver again and put it in his mouth.

He finally knew what he’d say if someone asked him what his worst nightmare would be.

It’d be this, sitting in a hospital waiting room, waiting to know if he’ll be following the man he might have loved into whatever lay beyond.

  
  
  
  
  


The fluorescents were loud when the doctor came into the room and shook him awake from an empty sleep. He barely heard anything the man said past the first few words, clinging to them like someone drowning in a shipwreck who’d finally been tossed a lifeline.

He wouldn’t die that night.

  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
  


Ben heard the machines beeping before he registered anything more, sliding into consciousness slowly. His eyes stung when they opened, and he dully thought that he should probably have a headache, but all he really felt was mildly nauseated and very, very high.

He must have made some kind of noise because Toby put his book down and leaned forward in his chair, which, Ben noticed slowly, had been pulled from its original place to right next to the bed he lay in, to brush a lock of hair from Ben’s forehead.

“Mornin’ sunshine,” Toby said, smiling.

“This feels familiar,” Ben quipped groggily. “Don’t think it was me in the bed last time, though.”

He could tell Toby was tired. He had dark circles under his eyes and his curls were unkempt. There was a chaise lounge under one window with a rumpled blanket on it that told Ben he’d been here a while. The afternoon sun was shining through the window behind him, though, and he looked like an angel at Ben’s bedside.

“You get the fucker that did it?” He asked.

Toby’s face tensed, just a little. “Yeah,” he said. “They won’t be an issue anymore.”

Ben sighed. “Good. Give 'em hell for me.”

He looked down at where Toby’s hand sat next to his on the blanket, not quite touching. It’d been two years and it still made him nervous, but he was long past pining over the brushes of fingertips.

Toby twisted his wrist so their hands were palm to palm, fingers laced together, and squeezed just a little, taking care not to put pressure on the tubes feeding up into Ben’s veins.

“The TVs here have Netflix,” Toby said, leaning back in his chair and lifting his book with his free hand. “If you think you can watch anything.”

Ben was already feeling sleepy again. “Probably not. Not right now.”

“Then take it easy. They might let you go tomorrow, if you can walk.”

Ben closed his eyes, focused on the warmth of Toby’s hand in his, the sound of him breathing next to him.

“Good. I fuckin’ hate hospitals.”


	4. Bastard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“What are you doing up this late?” Ben asked, following Toby with his eyes.  
>  “Same as you. Can’t sleep.”  
> “Don’t you have drugs for that?”  
> “Not anymore.”_
> 
> Ben deals with some new emotions regarding his bodyguard and his coping mechanisms while remembering things from his past. This one is probably the roughest content-wise so pay attention to the warnings, please.
> 
> Word count: 7277  
> Chapter Warnings: Drug use, suicidal ideation, brief mention of attempted suicide, gun violence, brief non-explicit underage noncon (it's mostly just heavily implied, but added the archive warning just to be safe), homophobia, f-slur, semi-explicit consensual sex, General Unpleasantness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Time is wasting and  
>  I'm not losing sleep  
> Don't just stand and stare  
> Come on and bare your teeth_  
> Bare - WILDES
> 
> _To all the hopeful ones:  
>  Nobody gives a fuck what you've got_  
> Bastard - Devin Townsend

The room smelled like carpet glue and dust, exactly how it had six months ago when Ben had moved in. He’d only stuck his head in to acknowledge the existence of the servants’ quarters (which, who the fuck puts a servants’ quarters in a penthouse anymore?) before turning back to the rest of the apartment, desperate to make the formality of the realtor showing go faster. He really wasn’t that picky. He just needed somewhere to put his money, and himself. Somewhere in the clouds, with enough security to keep him safe, at least from the outside.

The door had stuck a little when he’d pushed it open, untouched brass key in the knob shiny and unused. The walls were white, the default paint, no furniture to be seen. A blank slate ready to be made some semblance of a home. Silence all around; the power had never been turned on, there was no steady hum of a refrigerator to fill the ringing in his ears.

The breaker box was in the bedroom, so he made his way down the short hall past the kitchen, guided by his phone flashlight. He turned on the power and blinked as all the lights came on at one time - flickering before beginning their slow warm up, brand new CFLs in the sockets that had never felt electricity. Now he could see the footprints he’d left in the spotless white carpet, yet another thing ruined by his touch. Soon you wouldn’t even be able to see those, covered up by the steps of someone else.

“You should get a bodyguard,” his father had said. “If you’re going to be leaving your office and doing client meetings, there needs to be someone between you and their gun.”

Something had gone sour in Philadelphia. Ben had a full battalion and had come out unscathed, but he was one of the only ones, and he'd noticed the shift in his father’s demeanor almost instantly the second he got home.

The gun in his face scared his father more than it scared Ben. Ben had stared down that revolver’s black eye like it was an old friend. It wouldn’t be the first time he had. It wouldn’t be the last.

He wasn’t going to agree until he saw the name among the files, the one that made him pause. He wondered if it was a ploy, some kind of bait set up by someone who had seen, who had heard, who had known. The kid had been at that negotiation and saved someone’s life, and that had impressed his father, at least. So young and strong. So delightful to look at. Such a good candidate to look over the suicidal son of a cartel boss.

He wondered if his father knew. How that same man who'd saved the life of a low rank comrade had fucked him until he’d forgotten he’d meant to decorate the beach with his brains that night. How he’d spent the last three months chasing that high and never finding it again, drowning it all in codeine and top-shelf whiskey until he wasn’t sure what day it was.

“Having someone else around will do you good,” Senior Mercutio said. “It’ll make that penthouse less lonely.”  _ It’ll make sure you don’t overdose _ , was what Ben heard between the syllables.  _ It’ll make sure you stay alive _ .

But why. Why would he bother? It was only a matter of time before the nights got too dark and the days too bright to bear any longer. He was richer than god and could buy any amount of men or women or drugs he wanted, but nothing could fix the disease that ate away at his brain and stole the colour from the world, if there had ever been any to begin with. He’d been trying for twenty-five years. Surely that was a good enough effort.

\---

  
  
  


_ She’d been trembling as she passed him the letter, folded up and sealed with a Flutter Ponies sticker. He was ten, or thereabouts, a few weeks after the start of fifth grade. He couldn’t even remember her name, even then. _

_ “What is this,” he started to ask, but she’d turned and run away, enveloped into the arms of her friends, and they watched him over their shoulders, buzzing with anticipation. _

_ “Do you like me, yes or no,” the letter had read. He’d unfolded it with soft child’s hands and stared at the letters, written neatly in glittery pink gel pen. Undeniably feminine, with long looping tails on her Ys and a heart over the I. _

_ He’d looked up at her and pondered the question, asked by a girl he didn’t even know. She was taller than him, her face soft and round, framed by short blonde hair. He’d tried to think about her, what she liked, how she talked, what subjects she was good at. He’d supposed she’d liked horses. He’d never seen a horse before. _

_ “I don’t think we have enough in common,” he’d told her as he handed the letter back, unmarked. “I don’t even know your name.” _

_ She’d called him a jerk and sobbed into her best friend’s collar, but by the next week she’d already forgotten the boy with black hair who sat in the back of the class. She was writing someone else’s name into her notebook then, and soon she’d written a similar letter and thrust it into a new pair of unsuspecting hands. _

_ But now he was watching her as she did it, the way her cheek dimpled when she laughed, the deliberate way she would doodle flowers and hearts in the margins of her worksheets. He’d still thought they had nothing in common, but suddenly he’d begun to think maybe he didn’t care so much. _

  
  


_ \--- _

  
  
  


“You can stay in here,” Ben said, pushing the door to the servants’ quarters open with one hand. “It’s got its own kitchen and bathroom and shit.”

Toby stepped in, pulling a suitcase in behind him, and looked around. “Do all penthouses come with this sort of thing?”

Ben shrugged. “Dunno. Dad lives in Cottage Home, and before that I was an east side urchin. I don’t have a lot of experience.”

Toby relented. “I expected to just have the spare bedroom, not a whole apartment to myself, so I can’t complain.”

“You’re fuckin’ welcome,” Ben mumbled. “If anything’s broken, tell me and I’ll get maintenance up here. I’m going smoke.”

The air was colder up here than it was on the ground, and Ben was glad for it ruffling his gelled-up hair as he stepped outside on his balcony. Top of the building, nobody above to watch him contemplate how easy it would be to step over the waist-high railing and drop twenty-five stories. Maybe he’d land on someone’s car like that chick in the forties that jumped off the Empire State Building, coming to rest so delicately in the dip of a crumpled hood. Maybe they’d take a photo of him, too, beautifully peaceful in death like he’d never been in life.

Or maybe he’d just splatter on the pavement and close off the block, pissing off everyone staying in the hotel below.

You’d think they’d have put nets or something up, but no. They just trust the rich to be courteous enough to die some other way.

“Wow, this is a view, huh?” Toby said, stepping through the open sliding door. “Almost makes Indianapolis look pretty.”

The sun was setting to their left, the light catching on the building next door, blinding Ben in one eye. “I guess,” he said.

“Well, it’s nicer than my old place, anyway.”

Ben had looked at his papers. Toby lived in the same neighbourhood that Ben had grown up in. But hopefully  _ he _ wasn’t sleeping on the floor under threadbare blankets until the bank pulled him out by his filthy sleeves and threw him to the wolves.

The next afternoon the movers had brought the few bits of furniture Toby had owned - an old wood and metal bed frame, a second-hand bookcase, a couch that smelled a bit like dog and didn’t match a single thing made within the last decade. He bought a folding table to set in the kitchenette, a coffee table to set in front of where a TV should go, but no TV to put there. The few books he owned were worn and bore the remnants of thrift store price stickers.

“How much were they paying you?” Ben asked, standing in the living room amongst a pitifully few boxes, feeling awkward in his designer jeans and leather jacket.

“My mom’s chronically ill,” Toby replied, hefting a box that Ben was certain weighed more than Toby let on from atop the pile. “Most of my salary goes to her. Or went, I guess, since I got a raise. Unless you’re going to make me pay rent.”

“I’m nicer than that,” Ben said.

Toby had given Ben a little smile as he said that, and it felt like lightning in his veins.

  
  
  


\---

  
  
  


_ “Do you like anybody?” _

_ The question had been asked by one of his middle-school friends; he can’t remember her name but he can remember her face - dark skin and tight curls she wove into braids with beads set into the ends. She was a year younger than he was but she was still an inch taller, all knees and elbows plastered in Hello Kitty bandages. He wore matching ones on his palms, casualties of riding her dad’s old bike that had no brakes. He didn’t have a bike at home. He also did not have bandages. _

_ “Like,  _ like _ like?” He’d replied. _

_ “Duh.” _

_ His eyes had drifted across the cafeteria to where the popular kids sat, in their brightly-coloured designer polos and khakis that never had holes in the knees. Sitting closest to him (and it hadn’t even been close, it had been far at the other end of the table, at least twelve seats away,) was a boy with brown hair that had curled out at the ends, with eyes the colour of the sky and a smile that filled a room. His name had been Thomas, and he’d been wearing a hoodie with the brand’s logo printed on the front, the hint of a pink T-shirt peeking out from beneath. His words couldn’t be heard, but he remembered the braided twist of hemp around Thomas’s wrist. Strange what details the mind deems important. _

_ “No,” he’d said, but he couldn’t take his eyes away. _

_ “I think you’re lying.” She’d leaned forward across the table to see what he was looking at. “Ashley?” _

_ She was talking about the girl with curly red hair sitting in the group. “No,” he’d said. “She’s a bitch.” _

_ She’d laughed. “Thank god. Crystal?” _

_ “No.” _

_ “Danielle? Britney? Kaitlin?” _

_ He’d denied them all. _

_ She’d leaned forward again, following his eyes. “There’s not any other girls sitting over there.” _

_ “I told you, I don’t like anyone.” _

_ She’d looked at him and studied his face, then looked back. “You better not have a crush on me.” _

_ He’d recoiled maybe overdramatically. “Ew, no.” _

_ “The only other people over there are boys. Boys can’t like boys, so I guess you’re telling the truth.” _

_ “Why can’t they?” He’d asked. He’d tried to sound casual, but instead he’d been defensive, something in his chest tightening up. _

_ “They just can’t,” she’d said. A gold cross hung around her neck. “It’d be weird.” _

_ He’d looked back to Thomas. “I guess.” _

_ He’d meant to ask his mom if his friend had been telling the truth when she got home from work that night, but he’d eaten his dinner alone in front of the half-broken television, and even though he waited up much past his bedtime, she’d never come home again. _

  
  
  


_ \--- _

  
  


“I thought I was supposed to be the one making sure  _ you _ didn’t get shot,” Toby had said with a weak laugh, pressing a hand to his torso as he limped through the front door of the penthouse.

Ben did not think it was very funny. He hadn’t slept in two days because every time he closed his eyes all he saw was Toby’s blood on his hands. He’d had to rip up the flooring in the front hall and have it replaced, and now the areas were slightly different colours - one new, one old - and it just reminded him every time of how it’d felt to feel Toby fall limp in his arms.

“I’m trying to make the best of it,” Toby said, in lieu of an apology. “It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows for me, you know.”

Ben looked him in the eye. “I know.”

He didn’t want to think about it. Didn’t want to think about the black hole in Toby’s side staining his shirt and his jeans and smearing on his white walls, and he didn’t want to think about the wet slide of guts in Ben’s own hands, the pain so blindingly intense he wasn’t even sure how he’d made it to the hospital alone.

Ben placed the bottle of oxycodone on Toby’s bedside table alongside a bottle of water in case he needed it, the domesticity of the action feeling foreign to him. There weren’t a lot of pills in there.

“If you need more, let me know,” he said.

“I don’t think I will, but thank you.”

Toby thought he meant he’d call the pharmacist. Ben meant he had twice that amount in his bathroom cabinet upstairs, and usually some much stronger, but those bottles slowly went empty the longer Toby was in recovery. He tried to stretch them further, but he had to sleep eventually.

Ben left him there for the rest of the day to sleep off the pain, pacing from one spot to another, unsure of how to occupy himself, smoking a whole pack just for something to do with his hands. He forgot to eat dinner, but what else was new, everything turned to sand in his mouth these days. He knew better than to bother Toby for at least a week. He was on his own. He found that coffee on an empty stomach was worse than not eating at all.

“I’m going to bed-” he started, sticking his head into the door of Toby’s apartment, the words dying in his mouth.

Toby sat on the couch, shirt on the cushion next to him, a bottle of antiseptic and bandages on the coffee table, a soaked cotton pad in his hand. He looked up at Ben as he pulled his hand away, revealing the place where a hole used to be, replaced by red skin and stitches.

It was like cicadas in Ben’s mind, the sight of it, the smell of the antiseptic in the air, the phantom scent of blood just behind it. He didn’t realize he’d been staring, mouth open, eyes unfocused.

Toby glanced down at his torso. “I guess we match now, huh?”

Ben’s mouth felt dry. He didn’t need to ask how Toby knew. He’d never forget. “Yeah, I guess.”

He watched in silence as Toby pressed a new pad to the wound and taped it down. It was like seeing someone paint over a Monet. A blemish on an otherwise phenomenal piece of art. He wished he could kill the one who’d ruined him with his hands, tear him apart and feed his insides to the crows. He’d been in an opiod haze when the organization had caught up with the fucker who'd pointed a gun at his bodyguard and pulled the trigger, but he’d heard afterwards the process wasn’t pretty. He took solace in that.

“You’re gonna have to do the other one,” he said, pointing over his shoulder.

The other one. The one Ben didn’t look at because if he had he’d have lost it there on the floor. Toby had been lucky that it’d been point-blank - the bullet had gone right through. Sacrificed a little intestinal length in exchange for his life. But coming out is always worse than going in.

The line of stitches here was longer, the skin pinched a little tighter, a tube poking out of one end draining clear red and yellow liquid away from the wound. Ben was glad Toby couldn’t see his hands shake as he cleaned around the stitches, taking care not to bump the tube. Toby hissed at the pain despite Ben’s efforts, and it twisted in Ben’s guts like a knife.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

“It’s okay.”

He hadn’t touched Toby since that night in Florida, not in any significant way. They kept to themselves, no more than the bumps and brushes that two people living in the same space give one another - in the confines of a hallway, Toby’s hand on his elbow when he was getting too riled up at a client. The most intimacy they’d shared was Toby’s unconscious body in Ben’s arms, his hands pressed into the wounds to vainly try to stop the bleeding.

Toby’d had his hands all over Ben in that hotel room, but Ben had been a passenger on that ride. He’d watched Toby undress but never touched him, never saw the patterns in the freckles on his shoulders up close. Until now. Terrible how it happened now, like this. So medical, the changing of bandages in a strictly platonic sense, but Ben couldn’t keep his mind from wandering.

He just reached for the pads with his left hand and ripped the tape with his right, alternating between them while he finished, uncomfortable with how familiar he was with this procedure, his hands working on automatic so his eyes could continue to memorize the shape of Toby's body. He had lost weight, just a little, a tell-tale fold in his jeans where the belt was cinched one hole further. Not being able to eat will do that to you, Ben knew. His belts had been doing the same things for years, but he had so little real estate left. Likely nobody would have noticed the drape of Toby’s shirts over his shoulder but him. But maybe only because nobody else looked at him like Ben did.

“Are you changing my bandage or feeling me up?”

Ben cringed. His fingers had lingered too long at that spot on Toby’s mid back under the guise of steadying him while he worked. His skin was warm, and Ben was colder than he realized.

“I’m done,” he said, sitting back to observe his handiwork. It would do.

Toby pulled his shirt back on, wincing at the tug of skin against the stitches. “Thanks.”

Ben mumbled an acknowledgement, tearing his eyes away. He felt sick.

“How have you been holding up?”

The question didn’t register in Ben’s mind at first, so unaccustomed he was to anyone caring about how he felt. “What?”

“I haven’t really been conscious for a while, and you’ve had to take care of business alone. That’s gotta be stressful, making sure I’m still breathing while also being CEO of a company.”

“I’m C _ M _ O,” Ben said. “And I took off.”

“Really?”

“I haven’t exactly been conscious either.”

He didn’t want to talk about it. The bottles he’d cleaned up from around his bedside the day before Toby came home, the days he couldn’t remember except through his ever dwindling supply. Lying in bed staring at the ceiling wondering why he felt so miserable. He lived alone for so long, why was it bothering him now?

“I’m sorry,” Toby said.

“You got  _ shot _ . It’s not like you did it on purpose.”

“I still don’t like seeing you stressed.”

Ben studied his face, trying to find the deception there but finding nothing. His face was thinned too, his skin a little pale, dark circles beneath his eyes. Would anyone else be able to tell?

“You’re staring at me,” Toby said, with a crooked smile.

Ben looked away. “I’m tired.”

“How long since you’ve slept?”

“Couple of days.”

Toby lifted his fists. “Need me to choke you out?”

Ben’s veins ran cold. He’d seen what was under that t-shirt, even in his post-op low point. Toby could kill him if he wanted to.

“Maybe,” he said. “At this point I’d do anything.”

“I’d give you some of my oxy if I didn’t know I’d need it.”

Ben laughed wryly. “It wouldn’t do much to me at that dosage.”

There was that little line behind his eyes again. Ben shrugged. “I’ll live.”

Toby slapped his bicep. “The offer’s still open for choking. I can make it quick if you’re nervous.”

“Only if you kill me afterwards,” Ben said, and he was being sarcastic but Toby didn’t stop grinning.

“Whatever you say, boss.”

  
  
  


\---

  
  
  


_ His boss had jerked the collar of his sweater down the second he’d walked into the room. “Whatcha hiding under there, huh?” He’d asked, invading personal space to reveal the bruises, already deep and purple and red. It hurt. _

_ “Aw, the little boy’s all grown up now,” his superior had said, jeering. “About fucking time.” _

_ He was days shy of fifteen. He was amazed he’d survived, those thumbs pressed into his burgeoning Adam’s apple tight enough to leave bruises that had lasted for days, so close to blacking out but he’d been let go at the last second, left gasping in that alleyway. There had been a lot that could have gone wrong. There always was, he’d learned. _

_ He’d been here a year, running drugs on street corners for people more powerful than he could ever dream of being, blending into crowds and memorizing the city’s back alleys and slums, the layout of every shanty town. They paid him pennies for his time and it barely staved off starvation, a dollar for a drink here, a sandwich there. Sometimes he’d mug someone worthwhile and be able to eat more than once a day, and those were the days he’d felt like a king. Sitting alone on the cold concrete floor of some abandoned building, a joint he’d stolen from work in one hand, an entire hamburger in the other. He’d throw it up later, his stomach unused to the work, to the calories, but in the meantime it’d felt like heaven. _

_ He’d been chased out of too many gas stations, too many groceries, and he’d gotten desperate, desperate enough to pull his knife on someone he knew he shouldn’t have, and found himself with a gun in his face. _

_ “Do me a favour,” his victim turned assailant had said, pushing him to his knees. “And I’ll forget this whole thing happened.” _

_ But instead of opening his mouth and doing what he was told, he’d fought back, tried to get away, and found himself lifted by the throat and smashed into the wall so hard he saw stars. His arms were weak, he hadn’t eaten, he couldn’t fight. _

_ “Yer mama’s a whore, just like you,” said the punk in the alley some months later, his missing tooth on display within his sneer. “I heard ‘bout all the dicks you’ve sucked, you fuckin’ fag.” _

_ “My mom’s dead,” he'd snarled, dropping his centre of gravity. _

_ “All the best sluts are.” _

_ He’d swung, but the punk side-stepped him, more agile, more limber. _

_ “You gonna try and hit me with them limp sissy wrists?” _

_ His fist had landed then, a glancing blow, but enough to knock the punk off-balance and jump him, a surge of adrenaline making him think maybe, maybe he’d win this fight. _

_ He’d gotten him pinned down between his knees, but he hadn’t seen the knife until it was too late. _

  
  
  


\---

  
  
  


“It’s symbolism, or something,” Ben had said, resisting the urge to trace the lines with his finger. They were raw and red still, covered in plastic wrap that crinkled when he moved, sticking unpleasantly to his skin. He’d given his artist a break from the fill job on his arm by occupying hours of her time to ink intertwined snakes across his chest. One poised to take a bite out of his right shoulder, the other facing down the scar that started just under his ribs, ready to enact its revenge.

Toby had whistled, impressed, and Ben had immediately felt overexposed there with his shirt pulled up around his chin.  _ The last time you saw me like this was- _

Did he think about it, too? About tangling his fingers into his hair and pressing him into the mattress? About the revolver tucked into his waistband of his jeans where he’d thrown them on the floor? 

Sleeping that night was uncomfortable, and he tried and failed to find some position on his back that didn’t make his neck hurt before giving up and pulling on a pair of sweats and making his way downstairs. The penthouse was silent; it was the middle of the night, the moon casting silver shadows across the floor through the plate-glass windows. He thought about a cigarette but didn’t want to wake Toby up with the beeping of the alarm system and wondered when he’d become considerate. 

The fridge contained cheap beer and neatly packaged leftovers intended for him but would inevitably be moved to Toby’s fridge in the next couple days. Every evening, (except when he was recovering from surgery; it felt like years and just yesterday at once,) Toby would make dinner, eat it alone, but always take two plates out.

The thought of food nearly turned his stomach but Ben took one of the containers out and set it on the table. He ate it cold, hungrier than he thought he was. He didn’t know what it was, but if it’d been fresh it'd have been delicious. Usually he ate to survive, but this might get him to eat just for the hell of it sometimes.

“I knew you’d try something eventually,” came a voice from his right, but he didn’t startle this time. Toby padded quietly from his apartment to the kitchen sink, pouring himself a glass of water.

“What are you doing up this late?” Ben asked, following Toby with his eyes.

“Same as you. Can’t sleep.”

“Don’t you have drugs for that?”

“Not anymore.”

“I have more if you want some.”

“I’m good.”

His appetite gone, Ben snapped the lid back onto the container and put the rest back into the fridge.

“I’m sorry,” Toby said. “I didn’t meant to-”

“You didn’t,” Ben interrupted. “I’m just having a night.”

He didn’t need to elaborate. They both knew why Toby was here.

“I’m still available to put you out manually,” Toby said.

“I’m not in the mood for jokes.”

“I didn’t say I was joking.”

He was standing with the windows behind him, moonlight reaching around his edges, illuminating his outline like a halo in silver and black. Beautiful like a photograph taken in a studio, the backdrop of Orion’s belt hanging low in the summer sky.

“What are you doing?” Ben asked, stepping back into the shadow, eyes narrow.

“My job,” Toby replied.

“Your job is to keep me alive.”

“I seem to remember that can take some convincing.”

“And you think choking me is going to get the job done?”

“It’s worth a try.”

_ Soft hands squeezing not hard enough, stroking his throat like it was velvet, lips on his jaw, the wrong voice whispering platitudes into his skin. _

“I’ll do whatever you want me to, boss.”

_ Fingernails closing up his airway, bruises left to turn yellow under black designer turtlenecks, rough in a way that made him gasp but never quite right, never quite the same. _

“I used you as a coping mechanism once, I’m not doing it again.”

“Even if I’m offering?”

  
  


\---

  
  
  


_ He’d dragged himself out of the house for once in his life, down to a nightclub in a city basement, where the lights were neon and the music was loud enough to drown out his mind. He’d never been much of a dancer, but the whiskey and weed and ecstasy helped, mixing up inside til he couldn’t feel his legs. It was something to pass the time. Get his exercise. _

_ He’d just turned twenty-one, his hair long in his eyes and touching his collar, the outlines of his left sleeve just healed beneath his skin, thin and dark. He’d blended in there, at that nightclub for outcasts, glow-rings wrapped around necks and wrists, everyone dressed in black and studs. He was probably the only one whose hair was naturally jet black, which he’d voiced to the girl with snakebites in her lips as she raked her fingers through it, commenting on the thickness. _

_ “Bet that’s not the only thing,” She’d said, their noses nearly touching, her body pressed against his, so incredibly warm. He’d been so very aware of every curve on her body, the way her heavily shadowed eyelids had dropped, the way she’d smelled of sweat and men’s cologne. Her legs threading between his, her thigh pressed into his groin, that pressure nearly tipping him over. _

_ He’d let her drag him into a back room - why did they have these, for this exact reason? - let her run her fingers down the lines of his tattoo, let her paint his face in her lipstick, let her slip a hand beneath his waistline, let her unbutton his jeans with well-practiced hands. _

_ He’d returned the favour in the back of her car but his mind turned back on before he followed her home, leaving him terrified of what he’d almost done. Not unless he could be sure it wouldn’t follow him. Not with someone whose name he hadn’t known. _

_ “You mafia types are stingier than I thought you’d be,” she’d said before she drove away, leaving him in a cold parking lot alone, wondering how he’d make it home that late at night with that many drugs in his veins. _

_ A week later he’d stepped out onto the office balcony to smoke and she’d been standing there, cigarette between her fingers, looking out over the city. She’d given him a wink and looked him up and down like she was appraising a side of beef at the butcher’s. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail and her makeup was more tame, her skirt still short but with much less leather. _

_ “My dad’s in real estate,” she’d said. “Hope you put in a good word for me.” _

_ When the deal fell apart she’d called him a poser and stated that he wasn’t even that good with his hands anyway. _

  
  
  


\---

  
  
  


“What do you want, Tobias?”

Back to the moonlit kitchen, Ben looking up at Toby from the kitchen table, eyes narrow in the gloom.

“Nothing,” Toby said.

“That’s what you said in Florida too.”

“And it’s still true.”

Ben stood up. “You expect me to believe that it’s a coincidence that you’re standing in my kitchen right now at two in the morning, propositioning me of your own free will?” His teeth flashed in the dark. “Do you know how many times I’ve had someone try to climb their way up the ladder through me?”

“I don’t want your money, Ben.”

“Is that what you were thinking when you put your name on my hotel room, or your file in the interview stack?”

“The hotel room was a mistake on the secretary’s part,” Toby hissed. “And your dad personally asked me to be your bodyguard after the shit in Philadelphia.”

“I’m sure he did.”

“Why would I lie to you?”

Ben’s throat burned. “The eldest son of a chronically ill single immigrant mother with a sister in her senior year of high school. Why  _ wouldn’t _ you lie to me.”

“How am I supposed to prove to you that there’s no motive? Would letting you pay me more help? Keeping me on a collar and leash?” He held his hands out. “Do I just need to beat it out of you?”

“Is that how you solve all of your problems, with your fists?”

“No, usually I sit down and communicate with the other person, but you don’t seem interested in listening to me when I tell you that  _ all I want is you _ .”

Toby chanced a step forward. “I can’t sleep either, you know.”

  
  


\---

  
  
  


_ He’d loaded the revolver with the intention of making a good show. Something to read about in the paper. A spectacle for others to consume and forget, the same in death as he’d been in life. Good for a thrill but never for forever. Just another bloodstain on the sand. Another worthless statistic. Another wasted life. _

_ It’s all he’d ever really been, after all. _

_ He’d put the gun underneath his chin and held his finger on the trigger for what felt like hours until he’d heard the neighbour beneath him come home from work. _

\---

  
  
  


The night went faster underneath him, the space between his thumb and his forefinger pressing exactly where that gun had sat not so long ago, pushing Ben into the pillow, long thin legs wrapped around his waist. It felt like coming home after a long day’s work, to collapse in the recliner with a beer and a TV remote. Kick your feet up. Relax. Take a load off. The high he’d been chasing finally returning at long last like heroin turning him loose and pliable and greedy for more.

Oh and Toby so willing, so ready to use his body to soothe Ben’s mind once more, to fuck him til he couldn’t think of anything else, to murmur aginst his neck, his voice like angels’ song through his skin, and he tried to remember every detail in case it never happened again.

It was quiet in his mind that night, and Toby never said a word about it in the morning, not until the night came again and he told him again,  _ I want you. _ Holding his body against his chest this time, gripping Ben’s jawline so firmly, his mouth on his shoulder, making new marks to match the ones already there, invisible beneath the ink. His hand and hips working in tandem, sighing his name amongst the swears. His arms pressing the air from Ben’s lungs as he tightened around him, burying himself one last time before release. His fingers rubbing circles in Ben’s legs as they came down from their high.

He drank it up while he could, while he was allowed to believe that this road went both ways, that Ben wasn’t just using Toby for his body, that Toby wasn’t using Ben for his money and power. That one day Toby would realize Ben was crazy, that the desire to be fucked harder, choked tighter, was nothing more than masochism, his teeth consensual self-harm.

“So what is this,” he asked on the night Toby didn’t sleep downstairs, preferring instead to steal one of Ben’s many shams and lay on it instead.

Toby shrugged. The lines on his shoulders were still raised and red and visible. “No point in sleeping in my own bed if you’re just gonna jump me the second I wake up in the morning.”

“Not that,” Ben waved a hand between them. “This.”

“I believe straight people call it ‘friends with benefits’.”

“That implies no loyalty.”

“Well, the phrase comes from  _ straight people _ , so make of that as you will.” He propped his head up on one arm, like a child at a sleepover. “Is loyalty what you’re wanting?”

“You have a lot of blackmail material now,” Ben said.

“I had that the day you hired me, you know. I know where you live, what your routine is, what brand you smoke, your drugs of choice. All much more interesting to your enemies than what your o-face looks like, I promise.”

“But I’m  _ paying _ you to be my bodyguard,” Ben said. “It’s your job to make sure I don’t get assasinated.”

“If I really wanted to, I could, though, and you trust me not to, and have for several months. So how come the second I say I’d very much like to have sex with you, you’re convinced I’m going to sell you to the feds and take everything you own?”  
“Didn’t your mom ever tell you not to stick your dick in crazy?”  
“She told me to wear a condom until we both get tested and that was about it,” Toby said, grinning. “She is a very progressive Catholic.”

“Aren’t you lucky.”

Toby’s voice was soft. “My only ulterior motive was wanting to know you better. To figure out where the person I talked to on the beach was beneath the person who sat in the top-floor office. So yeah, when your dad said he’d like me to apply, I did, not just for the raise, but because of you. I pledged to you my gun and my life before any of _ this _ ever happened; if it’s loyalty you want, you already have it.”

  
  
  


\---

  
  
  


_ He wasn’t sure he knew what love felt like but all he’d thought about in that hospital lounge was how desperately he did not want to go home alone. _

  
  
  


\---

  
  
  


The apartment downstairs still had the bookshelf, the couch, the bed, the little folding table in its little kitchenette, but the fridge was empty, the bathroom counter devoid of toothbrushes and hair products. A layer of dust had settled on everything, its door unlocked but untouched.

The upstairs closet was reorganized, one side now hung with pastel cardigans and khaki slacks, juxtaposed across the sea of black and leather jackets. Polished brown loafers sat next to studded boots in the hallway. A laptop with a sticker of the Chicago flag on the kitchen table next to an ashtray and empty whiskey glasses. A mug of coffee with “World’s Best Brother” printed on the side sat on the upstairs desk, half drunk, still steaming, forgotten by the one who’d brewed it, distracted by the man currently occupying his lap.

“You’re working me too hard,” Toby said jokingly, prying Ben off of him long enough to catch his breath. “I need a day off.”

“I wasn’t aware that I’d hired a pussy,” Ben said, rocking forward in Toby’s lap, eliciting a hiss.

“Sir, I have been up all night and now you expect me to have the energy to rail you again? This is exploitation. I’m going to unionize before you break my goddamn pelvis.”

“Oh? What are your demands?”

“That my dick get a break, for one,” Toby said, hefting Ben out of his lap and dumping him onto the bed next to him as though he were a rambunctious kitten. “And you take me on a vacation somewhere there’s some sun. I’m tired of winter.”

“Well aren’t you in luck, because I have found something to do with all the money you won’t let me pay you.”

“Oh?”

“I bought a beach house.”

Toby tried not to laugh but failed. “A  _ beach house _ ? You, Benvolio, bought a beach house.  _ Where _ ?”

Ben lifted his chin defiantly. “Florida.”

“Why on earth would you buy a beach house in Florida.”

“Because I wanted to, okay? Jeez, I don’t ask you this many questions about all the weird shit  _ you _ buy.”

“Okay, okay, fine, you’re a grown ass man who can do what he wants with his money.”

“Damn right I am.”  
“But for real. We’re not old enough to be snowbirds, and you’re not exactly a beach bunny...” Toby indicated Ben’s bare torso, his porcelain skin tone nearly blinding in the morning light. “Are you really just running out of things to buy?”

Ben shrugged. “It was a good deal.”

Toby studied him, looking directly into his eyes to suss out his secrets in a way that only he could. “It wouldn't happen to be in Key Largo, would it?”

“However did you guess.”

Toby’s face split into a grin. “Did you buy the hotel and raze it, or did they do that on their own?”

“They did it on their own. Your dick’s bomb but not  _ that _ bomb.”

“Wow, thanks.”

Ben continued, nonplussed. “It’s absolutely hideous; you’ll love it. Seashells glued to shit and everything. The outside is painted pink. I’m pretty sure the name of it is Bottom’s Up, and no, I absolutely did not name it that myself.”

“You are shitting me.”

“On God and whatever my soul is worth these days.”

The sky was overcast outside and the shadows were soft across his face, but the smile on Toby’s lips lit the room warmer than any summer day.

Ben put a hand over Toby’s face. “Alright stop looking at me like that, it’s making me feel weird.”

It did not erase the grin. “Are you  _ flustered _ ?”

“Absolutely not.”  
“Oh my god you are,” Toby laughed, pulling Ben back into his lap by the arm, ruffling his hair. “You sentimental bastard. You really do love me.”

Ah, well that made Ben’s stomach do something unusual, now didn’t it. “I wouldn’t call it that.”

“Whatever you call it, then,” Toby said, kissing Ben soft and slow. “It’s mutual.”

  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
  


“Here you go Mr. Lee,” said the realtor, handing Ben his keys. “She’s all yours.”  
Toby waited until they were back in the car. “Lee?”  
“My real name,” Ben said, turning the air conditioner to his face and cranking it to max. “I never legally changed it after I was adopted.”

“So all of your bank accounts are illegal.”

“All of them but one.”

Toby followed the GPS down the winding suburb roads. “I’m guessing Benvolio is an alias as well.”

“On the money.”

“I don’t know why I thought it wasn’t; given the whole codename policy. I guess because you actually use it in day to day life.”  
Ben shrugged. “‘Ben’ is a nice short and easy to remember name. And it makes Shakespeare nerds cringe.”

“You read Shakespeare?”  
“I had a tutor, you know; she made me read all the same shit public school kids did. It took me a couple extra years but I _did_ get a GED.”

They found the house right where the GPS said it’d be, up on stilts with a white wooden balcony and a string of colourful flags draped over the parking spot entrance.

“Well at least it’s not as ugly in real life as it was in the photos,” Ben said, making his way up the stairs and into the mud room.

“It looks like every other beach house we’d stayed in on the Outer Banks when I was a kid,” Toby said, smiling nostalgically. “It’s perfect.”

Ben wandered his way into the hallway to find the thermostat, flipping it on and dialing it down to sixty-five. Toby stuck his head in the bedrooms and bathrooms, declaring them fine, if not kitschy. The fridge was already cold, so Ben unloaded the car, stocking it with beer and sandwich materials. A flyer of local pizza delivery places was magneted to the freezer door.

“So I’m guessing we’re gonna be christening this whole place over the next week,” Toby said as he walked into the kitchen, grinning.

Ben gave him a look. “I thought you were on vacation? I’ve been planning on celibacy. I even brought a book to read and everything.”

Toby stepped forward, cornering Ben against the kitchen bar. “What do you think people do on vacation?”

Ben allowed himself to be lifted onto the counter. “Play mini golf? Eat seafood?”

“What about when you get back for the night?”

Toby was breathing on his neck and it was getting really distracting. “Get high? Watch American Ninja Warrior?”

“And afterwards?”

“Have a good night’s sleep in preparation for the next day’s tourist activities, obviously.”

“You’re killing me, Ben,” Toby whined.

Ben wrapped one leg around Toby’s waist, pulling him closer. “It’s actually Jeremy,” he said. “Ben’s on vacation.”

  
  
  


(and oh it sounded sweet pouring from his mouth that night, like nothing ever did.)


	5. Hallelujah

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Why do you keep going if you hate it so much?” Ben asked._
> 
> It’s the right thing to do, _said Toby’s mind, like a parrot so perfectly trained to repeat what it was told. But was it? Was it really? Was it really worth hearing the hate every week when he’d decided they were all evil so long ago?_
> 
> Toby tries to find somewhere to put his faith in the god that he no longer believes is worthy.
> 
> Several years ago I wrote a very salacious vignette of Toby going down on Ben with a lot of religious metaphor, but sadly it was lost in a hard drive crash. My roommate requested a rewrite, and this is the result.
> 
> Word count: 3574  
>  Chapter Warnings: Mild homophobia, religious guilt, explicit sex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _And it's not a cry that you hear at night  
>  It's not somebody who's seen the light  
> It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah_  
> Hallelujah - Leonard Cohen

Toby had been pious once. When he left Chicago his mother had pulled him down and cupped his hands around his face and told him she loved him, to call her, to not forget to go to church. “Okay, mama,” he’d said, and he’d meant it back then. And he’d tried, for a while, sitting on hard wooden pews and saying the right words at the right times, touching his fingers to his forehead, his chest, his shoulders, in order. He’d sit in a confession booth and make up something minor to tell the priest and apologize to God in the car later, but it was hard to tell someone he’d killed a man the night before without them calling the police.

“God still loves you, son,” the Father had said, but Toby wasn’t so sure anymore. Indiana had opinions about people like him, people who earned their money by standing at the backs of drug lords while they negotiated with dealers. People who pointed guns at other human beings and pulled the trigger without remorse. People who spent the night with someone with a body that looked just like theirs.

He’d spent a long time dealing with that last one. His little sister didn’t understand why they kept changing churches every few weeks, why she had to leave the friends she’d just made in Sunday school. Their mother had told her it was because she was trying to find somewhere she felt like family, but it was really because she didn’t want her son growing up hearing he was an affront to God from those he was supposed to respect. They never found one, not in Illinois, not in the 2000s.

“Nowhere in the Bible does it say it’s wrong to love boys,” his mother told him. And he wanted to believe her, but all around him they said otherwise, these people in authority around him, his peers in his school, on the street, in youth groups. The moments he had alone behind closed doors were his first true sin. Many more followed.

He’d grown up with Ash at his shoulder, standing guard while they pinched things from store shelves and friends’ houses, and later, while they picked the locks of strangers’ homes and lifted their valuables, silent as a cat. He knew it was wrong. Stealing was illegal on one hand, and God didn’t approve on the other. But then he’d look from the opulent suburban home his best friend was slipping into and think about the forty year old trailer with the broken dishwasher and temperamental heater and think that maybe Robin Hood was right. No one should be allowed to have this much jewelry when he was eating lunch at Ash’s house on snow days just to take home leftovers for his sister, who otherwise wouldn’t have anything to eat at all.

By the time they were stepping off of the bus in Indianapolis to start their new careers, Toby wasn’t sure he had a conscience at all. All of the people whose lives he’d ended either directly or indirectly had been ostensibly evil, hadn’t they? So why should he feel remorse? After all, despite his job,  _ he _ was still a good person.

  
  
  
  
  


“What’s with the getup?” Ben asked, looking up from his nest in the bed, laptop on his knees. “Got a hot date?”

“Church,” Toby said, fastening gold cufflinks into his sleeves. The suit was the same one he wore to work - it was the nicest thing he owned, even now, six months after moving into the penthouse. Even with the hefty raise, he tried to live light. The less he spent on designer clothes, the more money Julia and his mom were able to have.

Ben raised an eyebrow. “Church?”

“I used to go every week, but it turns out leaving one’s principle alone on a regular basis is bad for their health.”

“I’m just surprised,” Ben said. “I gotta admit, it’s a new one for me. I’ve never met a guy who worked in a cartel who also stayed faithful to the flying spaghetti monster.”

Toby made a face. “You’ve met people in the mafia, right? They’re the most Catholic people I know and nobody questions them, do they?”

“Yeah, ‘cause they’re  _ mafia _ . You  _ breathe _ weird in their vicinity and they’re garrotting you; I’m not about to ask them how they justify disappearing a dude minutes before heading off to Sunday services. But I think they’re hypocrites, too, if it makes you feel better.” 

“I didn’t ask for your opinion,” Toby said. “Going to church feels like the right thing to do, so I’m gonna do it whenever I can.”

Ben shrugged, turning back to his computer. “Whatever lets you sleep at night.”

But Toby didn’t really, not when he had to pin Ben's arms against his sides and hold him until he stopped struggling. Not when he had to make sure he was breathing before deciphering which of these bottles of NSAIDS were what they said they were. Not when he had to keep the keys to the gun case in his pocket and make sure Ben didn’t lie to him when he said they were locked up.

The woman who sat next to him in the back row held a baby in her lap and curled her nose at the smell of smoke in his clothes. The man in the pulpit preached about fear and guilt and coming to Christ, and Toby wondered if this was new, or if it’d always sounded like this and he just never noticed. 

“Repent of your sins or face eternal damnation,” he said with his finger extended over the crowd, and Toby realized that of all the things he’d done, he wasn’t sorry for any of them. He did what he did to protect those less fortunate than him - the poor, the sick, the self-destructive. The ends justify the means, don’t they?

He couldn’t remember the rest of the sermon. He’d come back home early, before closing prayer, a six pack in his hand as a peace offering for leaving, and they’d drank it together while watching crime movies on TV.

  
  
  
  


When he was fourteen he asked his mom if he could stay home to play video games, and she told him to go get dressed. “You do not  _ have _ to go to church,” she said in her snappy Hispanic accent, hands on her hips. “You _ get _ to go to church.”

He’d begrudgingly put on a shirt and slacks and combed his nigh-untameable hair, and left the boy he’d had a crush on to play WoW alone, his IM away message set to some plaintful lyrics of a song he couldn’t stop listening to. He spent the entire service dreaming of what he could have been doing if he weren’t here, his ass going numb, mindlessly clapping when everyone else did even though he had no idea why. Was this better than staying home? To exist in the space but not really be present?

The next week he pretended to be sick, and his mother had given him a scrutinizing glare but allowed him to stay home. The house to himself, free to say whatever he liked to the boy on the other side of the shitty reed microphone, no risk of anyone hearing. This, he thought, may be lying, may be playing hooky. But at least he wasn’t faking it.

Ten years later, Ben stood in the living room with a disappointed face as Toby slid on his shoes, a movie paused on the TV, a beer in each hand. He’d gladly drink them both alone, but he’d gotten one for Toby. He forgot it was Sunday.

Toby’s mind wrestled with itself, the feeling of doing one’s duty by sitting quietly in a pew, or spending time with someone whose company he enjoyed. One day of piety, of wishing he were home, sitting on the balcony with Ben while he smoked, in exchange for one more week of a somewhat soothed conscience? Was it worth the slump in Ben’s shoulders? The hurt in his eyes?

“Would you really rather hang out with some stuffy old religious dudes over me?”

Toby toed his shoes off again and shrugged off the jacket. “Not really,” he said, and took the beer from Ben’s hand, relishing in that almost imperceptible smile. He felt the guilt rise with every hour that ticked by, but if he could go back he would stay home again just to see him happy for a moment.

Beer made Ben loose but that wasn’t always good, the alcohol mixed poorly with everything else in his system that he didn’t think Toby knew about, and he soon passed out on the sofa with so little warning. He weighed nothing in Toby’s arms as he carried him upstairs to lay him on his bed, so small and pale against the dark sheets. He brushed his hair away from his face but resisted the urge to kiss Ben’s forehead like his mother used to when he was ill, leaving him there to sleep it off alone.

  
  
  
  


“I’ll put you on the prayer list, dear,” the woman with diamonds on her neck and in her ears said, smiling a piteous smile at Toby as he apologized for walking so slowly into the sanctuary, the stitching in his stomach and lower back pulling uncomfortably, that never-ending dull ache making it hard to breathe.

He’s heard this a lot, lately, whenever he felt it was safe to leave the house for those precious few hours, trusting Ben to behave himself until he got back. They’d get that same look on their face, that fake expression that they thought was empathetic but mostly was just patronizing. The pastor had offered to pray for healing but Toby politely declined through gritted teeth. He recognized the cut of his suit as the same brand as Ben wore, and he thought maybe if he gave more than platitudes to his congregation they may not be praying so hard for raises and medical miracles.

Ben had nothing smart to say when Toby got home, limping into his apartment to choke down another dose of oxycodone just to breathe again. His skin prickled at the sensation of Ben’s fingers on his skin as he helped with the bandages, colder than he remembered without the alcohol to warm them up. Ambidextrous hands switched dominance as it pleased him, one palm on his shoulder, the other more gentle than Toby thought possible, pressing gauze onto his wound. Was this the first time Ben had truly touched him? When he wasn’t bleeding onto the floor?

“You’re staring at me,” he said, smiling, already loopy.

“I’m tired,” Ben replied, and Toby fought back the urge to hug him. The circles were deep beneath Ben’s black eyes, but he was trying. Trying to keep it together while Toby could not. Doing two peoples’ worth of work and chores, all on top of just staying alive, when all Toby had gotten from anyone else were thoughts and prayers. Wow, he thought. Ben was such an amazing person. Maybe Toby was in love with him. Maybe he was just high.

“Thank god we got him here so fast, he may not have made it with all that blood loss,” the doctor had said, his voice distant in Toby’s drugged-up ears.

“Don’t thank god, thank me,” Ben’s voice growled. “God didn’t have anything to do with this shit.”

  
  
  
  
  


Toby had heard a song once, that spoke of the hate of another man’s beliefs, and it always was a poignant line, being who he was in the state he lived in, but sitting in that building while the preacher spewed vitriol over the pulpit really drove it home. Most of being a churchgoer was the community of it, but it was hard, now, to pretend he cared about these people who cared so little for him and those like him. It was like all of a sudden he realized how hypocritical they all were, claiming to be doing God’s will while pushing for a world where he didn’t exist. Why would he leave his comfortable home to come sit here and be told he was better off dead?

_ We love all of God’s children equally _ , he thought wryly, his hands gripping the steering wheel too tight.  _ Unless they look and talk and act and love differently from us, of course. _

“Why do you keep going if you hate it so much?” Ben asked.

_ It’s the right thing to do _ , said Toby’s mind, like a parrot so perfectly trained to repeat what it was told. But was it? Was it really? Was it really worth hearing the hate every week when he’d decided they were all evil so long ago?

“I don’t know,” he said.

The Bible said not to mark up the skin, so the next day he went with Ben to another endless tattoo appointment. The Bible said not to suffer the lives of murderers, so he offered himself to keep Ben safe that night. He wondered, as Ben’s fingers undid the buttons of the shirt he’d once worn to sit on that pew, if the woman who sat next to him would care about the life of someone like him. Would do everything she could to keep Ben safe, knowing what he’d done. Did his life have value, to someone like her? Was he worth missing service for, if it meant that his flame stayed lit?

What had they done for Toby, as a poor child in south Chicago? The teenager who joined the workforce the moment he could, all to keep his mother healthy? The man who turned to the underworld to protect those who he loved?

“You can say no, you know,” Ben had said, back when Toby signed his life away, and now as Toby knelt beneath him at the edge of his bed, the city outside the windows bathing his face in pale light. “I’m not gonna make you do anything if you don’t want to.”

“I know,” Toby said again, like he had that day in the downtown office. “I want to.”

The beats were familiar, this kneeling down, head bowed, beginning the service by asking God to fill the room with His presence, to bless those who had gathered there that night. Hands folded into the lap or held up near the mouth, words spoken from between spiritually parched lips. The softly whispered “amen” as the congregation stood to its feet, eyes lifted upwards, the heart-beat of the drums beginning to fill the room as the music swelled around them. The sound of their songs rising to the ceiling, passionate and overflowing, hands raised above their heads, a complete surrender of self.

If only God could have been so tangible as Ben was now, his fingers tight in Toby’s hair, his thighs against his cheeks. If only Toby’s questions had been answered in such an audible voice as the one above him here, approval given in catches of breath. The old church songs made sense now, as Ben’s fingers drifted to Toby’s own, tugging him gently up onto the bed, the opening prayer complete. 

He let himself admire and be admired, cold hands warming fast against his skin, lingering along the scars where Ben had been pierced along his side, his palms scarred from his own nails. No hymn had sounded so sweet as his voice when Toby slipped inside of him, no stained glass window so beautiful as his face, tossed back against his pillow, lips barely parted. No dance through the aisles so unabashed as theirs, Ben’s legs wrapped around his waist, Toby gripping his hip with one hand, the other on his shoulder, pushing him into the mattress, stabilizing them both, Ben’s fingers digging ruts into his back, his neck. 

The best services were always the ones where the music took everyone away, and the sermon never started. No time spent daydreaming while someone tells you how to live your life, just raw, unfiltered worship set to 4/4 time. The closing prayer spoken with adrenaline still rushing through their veins, a buzz so strong it lingered for hours.

Is this what real piety felt like, like Ben’s teeth sinking into his knuckles, biting down to stifle his moans? Did obeying the will of God feel like wrapping his hand around Ben’s throat and pressing just hard enough to make him gasp and arch his back? Was communion meant to taste like the salt on his skin, the blood in his mouth? Does speaking in tongues sound like reverent words repeated into the crook of his neck?

Never in a church’s sanctuary had he ever been able to let himself go so completely as he did here on the holy platform of another man’s bed, so caught up that he’d forgotten where he ended and Ben began, wrapped so tightly around one another, breathing in duet. So lost in the magic of his body, drunk on his taste, that he barely felt Ben put a hand into his chest and push him up, roll him over, his arms stronger than they looked.

“My turn,” he said, lips brushing Toby’s ear just before biting down.

Like the aurora borealis reflected in the snow, the rainbow when it rained, the meteor showers over the mountains, this was the gift given to the faithful: this unhindered view of him, all of him, backlit by the empty Indiana sky. His hair wild and sweat-slicked, clinging to his face, his eyes pressed shut, mouth open and gasping, unashamed. Toby dug his thumbs into Ben’s thighs and tried to meet him halfway, unable to take his eyes off of him, mesmerized by the movement of the snakes across his chest, the roll of his hips, his fingers pushing his hair back away from his face. No cathedral ever so full of divinity like the one made out of this bedroom, Ben the saviour painted in gold leaf above the pulpit, the moon the halo behind his head.

He leaned forward, one hand reaching blindly for Toby, lifting it from his leg to his throat again, silently asking for one small servitude in exchange for salvation. This kind of tithe was easy to give, to press his thumbs into the space between Ben’s chin and his Adam’s apple, to slow his thrusts and lay on his back and let Ben take control. To hold him by the neck while he used Toby’s body for his own pleasure, completely lost to the outside world. A selfish master like they all were, but Toby was always good at taking orders.

The hands making bruises underneath his skin strangled the cry that tried to leave Ben's lips, but his body quaked with the force of his orgasm, his legs trembling against Toby’s sides as he tried to keep the rhythm he’d built up but failed. Toby let him shake and gasp until it was over, his own body aching to continue, to chase its own release, but he wouldn’t, not until-

“Don’t stop,” Ben said, prying Toby’s hands from his throat. “Don’t stop.”

One arm around his waist and one in the crook of one knee and Toby flipped him again, claiming the reward promised to him: Ben sucking air through his teeth as Toby gave the bruises on his neck companions on his collar, bending him forward to deepen his thrusts, feeling him over every inch until he came like rapture, gasping out one final hallelujah against Ben’s skin.

They lay together chest to chest despite the almost uncomfortable heat from their bodies, Ben’s breath blowing the curls around Toby’s ear in a quick and steady rhythm. In a moment he’d have to break the spell, to walk out of the tabernacle and take a shower, but for now he just let himself enjoy it. To feel Ben against him, so real and physical, someone to reach out and hold. To breathe in the smell of him, so deeply permeated into Toby’s very being now that he had stopped noticing it months ago, but he noticed it now, heavy in his lungs and laced with the heady smell of sweat and sex. Just a few more minutes at the altar before he had to go home. A few more minutes to feel his presence before real life took over.

Religion promised sanctuary, salvation, a life eternal amongst the heavens, and Toby thought, his mouth on Ben’s, this penthouse’s walls were white as pearl, its floors marble inlaid with gold, up above a city with lights like stars. Their bed like heaven’s throne room, Toby the seraph that floats around it on gilded wings. Maybe Ben couldn’t save his soul but Toby didn’t care about eternity anyway; he’d burn in hell if it meant he lived while he was on earth, unrepressed and unrepentant.

He rose to leave the room but was caught at the wrist, a silent request to stay there in that room, just a little while longer, and for the first time Toby stood in the darkness and made the choice to remain in the chapel, to sit and feel his touch again. Drawn back into his arms to sing to him again the praises that Toby had been holding on his tongue for decades, no God deserving enough to hear them until now. 


	6. Gaydar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Toby’s attention snapped back to his friend. “What?”_
> 
> _They nodded, sagely. “He’s gay. Extremely.”_
> 
> _“How on earth can you tell? He just looks like a rich asshole to me.”_
> 
> _“Dude, he’s wearing slacks that show off his ass, ankle boots, and his hair is in a quaff. He’s got a ring on every finger and I’m pretty sure he’s wearing a turtleneck under his blazer. That man is gayer than a double rainbow.”_
> 
> Ash and Toby discuss Ben over lunch. Takes place before the start of the novel, around the beginning of their employment.
> 
> Word count: 2815  
> Chapter Warnings: Implied/referenced sexual activity

“Move over, loser,” Toby said, elbowing Ash in the head as he sat down next to them at the corner table.

Ash rolled with it, letting him shove their chair slightly to the side to squeeze himself in next to them.

“So what’d your mom pack you for lunch?” they asked, shoving their arm into a McDonald’s bag, purchased from the shopping centre down the road.

“Very funny,” Toby said sarcastically, popping open his tin thrift store lunchbox and removing several neatly wrapped homemade tamales. “Not all of us can afford Maccers for lunch every day.”

“Listen, I’m a shit cook,” Ash said, tucking into their cheeseburger. “You’ve got all that Mexican abuela training and stuff. I’m Chicago born and raised; I was out of luck before I was even a twinkle in my parents’ eyes.”

Toby unwrapped a tamale and shoved it into his mouth. “You could’ve moved in with me instead of insisting you live in like five different apartments, and I’d make you decent food every night.”

“Yeah, but you’re gonna wish you had five different apartments when someone calls the feds on you,” Ash said.

“I really don’t think that’s gonna happen, but whatever lets you sleep at night.”

“I  _ don’t  _ sleep at night, but thank you for being understanding.”

They were sitting together in the lunchroom, off in a corner by themselves. It was mostly quiet, just a few people coming in and out to buy something from the café, or rummage in the fridges to find the food they’d brought from home. The smell of coffee and microwaved meats filled the air. Outside, the city of Indianapolis went about its day, despite the rain that occasionally pelted the concrete from low-hanging clouds.

“So how’s your day been?” Toby asked, tossing another husk onto his pile.

“Eh, you know. I’ve spent all day with the people who actually make security systems finding every hole in their design. Same old same old.”

“Wonder when they’re gonna let you go out in the field,” Toby mused. “You’ve been white-hatting for the legit dudes for a while.”

“It’s kinda starting to get boring,” Ash said. “But I get paid, so y’know. Better than volunteering at the Field Museum.”

Toby unwrapped another tamale. “I’ve spent all day learning how to shoot a gun real good, which sounds like it’d be the American dream, but actually they’re just really fuckin’ loud, and the kick hurts like a bitch.” He rubbed his bicep. “Twelve gauge shotguns are no joke.”

“Better you than me,” said Ash, polishing off their burger and moving on to the fries. “I got spaghetti arms.”

“If you’d go to the gym once in a while you wouldn’t have that problem.”

“The only exercise I need is running from the cops, and I have the track ribbons to prove I still got that on lock.”

Toby hummed. “Do you get up at six and run every morning still?”

Ash made a face around their fries. “No, I go in the middle of the night when I have insomnia.”

“At least you’re getting outside occasionally.”

“You’re one to talk, Mr. Sits At Home And Watches PBS On The Rabbit-Ears Every Night,” Ash chirped. They held an arm up against Toby’s, their pale ginger skin contrasted against his olive undertone. “You’re nearly as white as me, now. I can see every single freckle.”

Toby shoved Ash’s arm away. “Listen, I’m getting beat to hell and back every day, I don’t have the time or the energy to go outside anymore.”

“Gonna get deficient in the D, dude.”

“Already been that for years,” Toby grumbled.

“So how are the coworkers?” Ash asked, changing the subject. “Any shitty bosses to rant about?”  
“Nah. Most of the guys are cool, if a bit…” He waved a hand, trying to think. “Overly masculine? You know, macho gun nut types. Exhausting as hell to be around, but at least they aren’t yelling at me.”

“Yeah mine are just nerds, so not much conflict there either. They actually  _ thank _ me for pulling their security apart in seconds, which is a nice change of pace.”

They chatted like this for a while, enjoying their lunch break like only low-level employees can, their meals finished but no effort being made to get back to work. It was the end of their third week at the company: on the surface a perfectly ordinary security firm, but just on the other side of the key-card locked elevator doors, an incredibly lucrative drug empire. Ash trained with the more legitimate branch, finding the holes in security systems (then, hopefully, robbing the ones who purchased them later.) Toby, who was over six foot and competed in varsity wrestling in high school, got snatched up by the protection branch and spent most of his time learning how uniquely agonizing it felt to be shot by each gun in the company’s arsenal so as to know which variety of Kevlar to use for every situation.

Toby stole some fries, and Ash reprimanded him, and he looked at his phone to make sure he wasn’t going to be late back to the range. Ash wasn’t concerned at all about being punctual, because the tech team were waiting on something to compile, or whatever. They didn’t know shit about programming and didn’t really care to learn. All they cared about was the thrill of getting the testing room door open without tripping the siren.

They were going into detail about some dumb reality show they had seen last time they’d gone back to Chicago to visit their family, when Toby slapped them in the arm urgently.

“Hey, holy fuck,” he said, gesturing with his eyes toward the café door.

Ash followed his gaze but didn’t stop talking, not wanting to be suspicious, but they soon realized that maybe it would have been better if they had. The atmosphere in the room shifted in seconds, everyone slightly on edge, almost all conversation stopped as someone new entered the room. 

Benvolio made a face at the sudden silence, and almost immediately the room returned to normal, or at least as close as one could be with someone important in the room.

Ash had never seen him before, but they’d heard the name whispered around accompanied by grimaces and figured this guy was probably him, based on looks alone. They didn’t know much about fashion, but they were certain that the suit he was wearing cost more than their monthly salary, and he had that air of superiority that only an incredibly wealthy executive can have.

“I thought the execs had their own cafeteria upstairs,” Toby said.

“Maybe he likes to come down and mingle amongst the little people to keep himself humble,” Ash mumbled. “Don’t think it’s working though.”

“Do you know anything about him?” Toby asked, studying the man at the front of the room. Watching the way his hands moved as he pulled out his phone and checked it, the way he shifted his weight to one leg while he waited for whatever it was he was here for.

“Just that he’s the bigwig’s son I think and he’s important. And he dresses like he used to be a scene kid in high school.”

His suit was Italian but the slacks were still tailored to show every curve in Benvolio’s legs, ending in very nice leather boots with straps and metal hardware that were extremely mid-2000s “I listen to My Chemical Romance” vibes. For a minute, Toby even thought Benvolio was wearing makeup until he realized his eyes were just naturally dark-rimmed, like he hadn’t slept in six years.

Ash took a long draw from their rapidly diminishing soda. “Also he’s gay.”

Toby’s attention snapped back to his friend. “What?”

They nodded, sagely. “He’s gay. Extremely.”

“How on _ earth  _ can you tell? He just looks like a rich asshole to me.”

“Dude, he’s wearing slacks that show off his ass, ankle boots, and his hair is in a quaff. He’s got a ring on every finger and I’m pretty sure he’s wearing a turtleneck under his blazer. That man is gayer than a double rainbow.”

Toby studied Benvolio some more. “I have no idea where you’re getting that from. He just looks trendy to me, maybe a little goth. Nothing about that screams ‘gay’ to me.”

Ash gesticulated dramatically with their hands. “And to me it’s like, the most obvious thing in the world! I don’t understand how you can be gay enough to wear exclusively cardigans and chinos but still have a gaydar _ this  _ bad.”

Toby watched Benvolio catch someone passing by and tell them something that made them cow away from him before scurrying down the hallway. “My gaydar is fine, I think it’s yours that needs calibrating,” Toby said. “He’s just a douchebag with too much money.”

Ash reached into their back pocket and withdrew their wallet, flipping open the billfold and gazing within. “I bet you...three bucks and Graeter’s gift card with an undetermined amount of money on it that he’s gay.”

“Fine, but you’re wrong.”

“Whatever you say, bud,” Ash said, crumpling their McDonald’s bag into a ball and tossing it into a nearby trash can. “I gotta get back to nerdsville. See you tomorrow if I don’t catch you when I get off.”

Ash gave Benvolio a polite nod as they skirted past him on the way out of the door, and Benvolio gave them a disinterested stare. A few seconds later, Toby’s phone buzzed in his pocket: a text from Ash.

_ he has a gay earring too btw _

By the time Toby had returned his lunch box to his locker on the other side of the room, Benvolio had gotten whatever it was he needed and disappeared, and Toby was forced to come to terms with the fact that he more than likely would never know for sure.

  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  


Two years later, Ash got a notification on their phone from PayPal, for three dollars. On the message line, it said: “I’ll buy you a Graeter’s card next time we do lunch.”

Ash stared at their phone for several seconds in confusion before shrugging and transferring the money to their bank account, to be immediately cashed next time they got paid.

  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  


“Twenty questions,” said Ben, propping his legs up in Toby’s lap. “I start this time.”

“Fine, shoot,” Toby said, nonplussed by being used as furniture. 

It was a lovely spring night, the air humid but cool, a promise of rain. They sat on the balcony, Ben smoking, Toby just enjoying the breeze, pleasantly sore and satisfied.

Ben thought for a moment, then asked: “If you suddenly ended up with a million dollars, what would you spend it on? Your mom doesn’t count.”

“Technically, I already have a million dollars, it’s just in your bank account. But you gave me a credit card in your name and told me I could use it for whatever I wanted...so I would do exactly what I already do: probably just buy groceries and top shelf whiskey.”

Ben groaned. “Ugh, technicality.”

“Still counts,” Toby said. “Why do you have two cars if you can’t drive?”

“Because when you’re hot shit like I am, you’re expected to have fancy cars, and it doesn’t matter if I can drive or not, because another thing you do when you’re hot shit is hire a driver.”

“But why _ two _ ?”

“One long one for when I need to compensate, and one that isn’t so long for when I don’t, duh.” He exhaled smoke dramatically. “How did you end up working for my dad?”

Toby shrugged. “It was really Ash who got the lead from being good at breaking and entering, I just helped them move since they were a minor. When I brought them to their interview or whatever, the doorman told me I should try for one too. Guess being tall and kinda hench worked in my favour.”

Ben allowed himself the pleasure of giving Toby a(nother) once over. “Worked in mine, too.”

Toby bounced Ben’s leg with his knee. “Gay.”

Ben flicked the ash off of the end of his cigarette. “Actually no, though in this case, yes.”

“Oh?”

Ben gave Toby a lopsided smile. “Technically I swing both ways, but I prefer dick over pussy, if it makes you feel better. Not a fan of the whole...possibility of babies thing. There doesn’t need to be any little Bens running around; one is enough. Plus, straight people suck and I’d hate to be confused for one.”

“Huh.”

Ben sat up a bit straighter, growing serious. “Actually we might wanna talk about this if we’re gonna be…together. If you want kids this might not work out.”

Toby had been staring out over the city, trying to remember why the technicality of whether or not Ben liked men exclusively was important. “Huh? Oh, no, it’s not really something I care a whole lot about, really. I mean it’s not like I could get married, anyway, so kids were always more a ‘if he wants ‘em I guess’ kind of thing. It wouldn’t bother me to be the end of my family name.”

Ben nodded. “Alright then.”

“Mhmm.”

“It would’ve been awkward if we had to break up right when things were starting to go well.”

Toby looked at him then, grinning. “We’re dating?”

Ben immediately turned away, trying to hide the flush in his face by taking a long drag of his cigarette. “You’ve fucked me enough times that I think it counts by now.”

“If that’s how you wanna define this relationship, I guess.”

“Hard to get on your knees for your live-in bodyguard every night for a month and it not become a ‘thing’.”

“I wasn’t going to assume anything about what you wanted out of the arrangement, sir.”

“ _ Please  _ do not call me ‘sir’ when you just spent the last hour railing me into next weekend.”

“Whatever you say, sir.”

Ben kicked at Toby’s stomach with his foot. “Stop calling me that.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ben aimed a kick at Toby’s head, but Toby caught him by the ankle and held his leg still, out away from his face. Ben glowered, but relented, his skinny frame no match for Toby’s strong arms.

“So have you ever dated a girl?” Toby asked.

“Nah,” Ben said, setting his foot back in Toby’s lap. “Would it upset you if I had?”

“No, just curious, really. I’ve never been interested in women but I’ve always heard they’re a lot different to sleep with.”

Ben shrugged. “Never slept with one, so I can’t comment on that, but I can say they at least usually smell better on average.”

“Are tits as nice as straight guys make them out to be?”

“They’re fine, but not worth losing your entire goddamn mind over, for sure.”

“I see. The more you know.”

Ben stubbed out his cigarette and tossed the butt into the ashtray on the fold-out patio table next to him. “Alright, enough questions about where my dick’s been. It’s humid as shit out here and I don’t wanna have to take another shower because I got sweaty sitting on the balcony talking to my b...bodyguard about who I have and haven’t fucked.”

Toby raised an eyebrow but said nothing. If Ben wanted to pretend he wasn’t emotionally invested, that was up to him. But Toby definitely remembered the way Ben’s voice cracked in the foyer while cradling his head in his arms.

Ben paused at the balcony door, reaching into the pocket of his pajamas to pull out his phone, the screen lighting his face in blue light that contrasted the yellow glow from the city below them. There was something familiar in this scene; Ben facing away from Toby, looking down at his phone, one hand on his hip. Toby watched him for a moment as he scowled at whatever it was he was seeing on the screen before turning the phone off the sighing, rolling his head back. It was then that it clicked into Toby’s head, the position of Ben’s hands, the proximity to the door, the fact that Toby was sitting down and looking up at him, almost exactly the perfect distance away.

He slapped his pockets, finding them empty. “Hey Ben, do you know where my phone is?”

“I dunno, I’m not your phone’s babysitter.”

“Help me look for it.”

Ben sighed dramatically and halfheartedly looked around the living room. Within a few minutes, Toby found it next to a cup of now-tepid chamomile tea he’d been brewing before Ben had dragged him upstairs an hour ago.

“Why do you need your phone so urgently at one AM on a Wednesday?” Ben asked.

Toby couldn’t stop the lopsided smile that spread over his face as he opened PayPal and started filling out an invoice. “Ash owes me three bucks.”


	7. Promotion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Tobias’ mouth moved before his brain could stop it. “With all due respect sir, Benvolio may be a dick, but I wouldn’t call him unstable.”_ Oh my god.  
>  _Mr. Mercutio gave him a strained smile. “You’re kind. And I see he has you fooled, much like everyone else."_
> 
> Toby gets a promotion that changes his life forever. Originally written in 2015 or 2016, recovered from a hard drive crash by my roommate. Edited ever so slightly to reflect some name changes that had taken place since then, but otherwise preserved in its original writing.
> 
> words: 1324  
>  warnings: Mention of gun violence, mention of suicidal ideation

Tobias struggled to keep his hands from shaking. Hold yourself together man, you’re a big boy, you’ve done worse than this, fuck you’ve killed a man, what’s the big deal?

His hands continued to tremble as he pushed open the door, making eye contact with the woman sitting at a desk, nails perfectly manicured, a little too much makeup.

“Ya here ta see mista Mercutio, eh?” Her voice sounded like nails on a chalkboard, nasally and high.

Tobias nodded, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him. There were chairs against the wall, but he remained standing. The man on the other side of the heavy wooden connecting door deserved respect.

The woman at the desk picked up the phone, pressing an extension and holding it to her ear. “He’s here, sir.”

She held the phone to her ear another moment, then placed it on the receiver. She looked up at him, seeming bored out of her mind. “Mista Mercutio will see you know.”

Jelly legs carried Tobias to the door. It didn’t feel like real life as he turned the handle, pushed the door open, and stepped into Mr. Mercutio’s ornately decorated office. Taxidermy and ancient art lined the walls, and the furniture seemed crafted from single blocks of wood. Sunlight filtered through heavy curtains lending an air of regality to an already spectacular room.

Mr. Mercutio smiled as Tobias entered the room, a surprisingly warm and sincere smile.

“Hey, glad you came.”

Tobias was so taken aback. “Uh…yeah. Me too.” _Oh god no_. “I mean…”

Mr. Mercutio laughed. “I understand.” He motioned to a chair across from him. “Now for gods’ sakes sit down. You look like you’re about to faint.”

Tobias obeyed, falling into an overstuffed chair with relief.

Mr. Mercutio’s face instantly sobered. “I had a reason for calling you, Tobias. You were with the party who went to Philadelphia, correct?”

Tobias nodded.

“So you saw what happened.”

Tobias nodded, wishing that he had no idea what Mr. Mercutio was talking about. A deal with the Philadelphia crime family had gone awry, and it was kinder to say that when it was all over, the people in the top offices had more than the average amount of paperwork to do and phone calls to make.

Tobias unconsciously pressed a hand to his chest, feeling the pain of the bruises that had turned ugly and yellow.

“My son was there that day.”

Tobias’ heart fell. “Benvolio was there?” 

Mr. Mercutio nodded. “He was the negotiator. And come to think of it, that is probably why the whole ordeal went down the shitter.” He made a face. “I hear you had some injury as well.”

“Took a shotgun to the chest. I was wearing Kevlar, but I have a nasty bruise.” He tapped his chest, wincing. “Uh, sir.”

Mr. Mercutio smiled. “I heard you got it by shielding someone else.”

“Yes, sir. That person had already been shot, and if he’d taken another hit he wouldn’t have walked out of there.”

“Your loyalty saved his life. I heard he’s going home tomorrow.”

Tobias flushed. “I’m glad to hear that, sir. Thank you.”

Mr. Mercutio laced his fingers together, leaning his chin against them.

“While you may have saved that man’s life, I fear for my son’s.” His eyes lost focus. “He is…unstable.”

Tobias’ mouth moved before his brain could stop it. “With all due respect sir, Benvolio may be a dick, but I wouldn’t call him unstable.” _Oh my god_.

Mr. Mercutio gave him a strained smile. “You’re kind. And I see he has you fooled, much like everyone else.

“One might think that he is loud and brash for the sake of impressing others, making a reputation for himself that he thinks will illicit respect. The truth is less attractive. In reality, he has very little regard for his own life.

“If someone is in trouble they may talk big in order to bluff the enemy. You’ve seen movies – the protagonist goads the villain to kill him in order to throw the villain off and give the protagonist an opportunity to free himself. When Benvolio does it, he truly wishes to die.”

Tobias didn’t know what to say.

“I’m sure you’re beginning to get the idea of why I called you today.”

“Sir, I…”

“My son is not likable, I am aware. Part of me feels like it is my own failure, but there were certain things cemented in his mind long before I took him in. I…” Mr. Mercutio paused, trying to hide the catch in his voice. ”I am afraid my son will do something to himself that I will not be able to stop.

“He speaks of you often. Apparently you made some sort of impression upon him at the company getaway a few months ago. I was pleased to see that you seem to embody the kind of morals and determination that I look for in my own bodyguards.

“I normally do not give information about the principals to potential guards, because it tends to sway the guard’s opinion of the job or their charge, but he is my son. And I want the person I set in charge of him to understand that he doesn’t just need protection from others, but from himself as well.”

Mr. Mercutio cleared his throat. “Of course it will come with a substantial pay raise. I hear you have some family you’ve been helping out. I’ll see to it they’re taken care of.”

Tobias’ head was reeling. He’d been living light all these years, most of his money gone toward his mother and sister, keeping them safe, alive, paying for his mothers’ treatment that only seemed to get more expensive. The prospect of having them cared for in addition to allowing Tobias himself a finer life than a studio apartment in the rough side of town was thrilling.

He looked up at Mr. Mercutio’s face, instantly sobered. This man was taking a huge risk on him, entrusting the fragile life of his son into Tobias’ hands, and here he was getting excited about the money. _What a shame you are_.

Tobias remembered the ugly red lines running across Benvolio’s torso as he stretched across the hotel bed, blowing smoke into the air, telling Tobias how he got them, how hollow his voice sounded. How many people had he told that to? _He’d told me_.

“Thank you, sir. I’d be honoured.”

Mr. Mercutio smiled, the relief obvious on his face. _Shame on you, shame shame shame_. “It will be some days before you’re officially instated. I have to make Ben think he came up with the idea and not me. He’ll probably call you and walk to talk to you himself soon, but trust me, you have the job. Like I said, he’s fond of you.”

Mr. Mercutio stood up, selecting a book from the shelf behind his desk, laying it open. “You’ll need a new name, since you’re changing departments.” The book was a ledger of names, aliases.

Tobias scanned the shelf, full of ornate hardbacks of classics and transcripts. His eye fell on one book, famous for its author and its subject matter. Most of the names sounded too posh for Tobias, unfamiliar with luxury and ease. One name hung in his mind, one he’d heard occasionally in modern day. The character happened to be dead in the story, but Tobias wasn’t the superstitious type.

He wrote his new name in the ledger book, next to his old one. Mr. Mercutio shook his hand, thanking him again, the tears beginning to brim within his eyes again.

“Take care of my son,” he said.

“I will, sir. I promise.”

Tobias walked out of the room, hands in his pockets, feeling like he’d stepped through a door that had locked behind him, never able to go back to what he used to know.

 _Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him well_.


	8. Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _They’d always wondered what drowning felt like.  
>  Now they knew._
> 
> Ash has a run-in on a bridge one night and doesn't come out alive. Monster/supernatural AU, and a lot of canon divergence.
> 
> Word count: 6637  
> Chapter Warnings: Drowning, implied alcoholism, implied drug use, character death (but they get better)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _So I collected all our plans and crimes  
>  And set them all alight  
> The only thing that bound me to this place  
> You took with you when you died_  
> \- All Is Well (It's Only Blood) - Radical Face

_ How did it feel to be normal? _

Lex asked Ash that once, and they weren’t sure how to respond. “Like...normal?” they stammered, trying to hide behind the red solo cup that they were drinking soda out of. The colourful plastic ice cubes touched their lip and left a cold, wet spot, and they tried to focus on that instead of the burning eyes of the woman sitting across from them, studying them. They were usually green, but today they were outlined in gold, the moon soon to rise swollen in the sky, only a sliver still covered by the shadow of the Earth.

She couldn’t remember normal, she said. She was young when her mother’s face had twisted into a werewolf’s snarl and her blood had curdled thick and black. Just a look was all it needed, that split-second eye contact and the curse was yours, too. Now her face shifted as she pleased, from person to person to person to slip in places she shouldn’t have been and walk out with things that weren’t hers. Ash wasn’t even sure if the face she had on was her original - was her skin really that dark? Her nose that big? Her hair that long?

“It must be borin’, not havin’ any powers,” Lex said, knocking back her own solo cup, which also contained soda, but mostly rum. “Soft squishy lil’ human body, always lookin’ like that all da time.”

“I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t insult me for not being a werewolf,” they said, mostly joking but slightly meaning it.

“ _ Rougarou,” _ Lex corrected, leveling a finger at them. “We’re much cooler than werewolves.”

“Fine,  _ roo gah roo, _ ” Ash said. “Being human isn’t all bad. I can go outside during a full moon and I don’t have to wear sunglasses for the week before to avoid cursing old people in the Winn Dixie.”

“Yeah but ya actually gotta worry ‘bout da cops bustin’ ya ass if ya get caught breakin’ into someone’s house,” she said. “If I get shot I can shrug it off unless it’s silver, an’ far as I know ain’t nobody know what I really am, so I don’t think I gotta worry ‘bout dat.”

Ash shrugged. “A small price to pay for not needing a BSDM dungeon in my secret basement that I have to chain myself to every month.”

Lex frowned. “Touché.”

They still weren’t sure why they’d never been affected. They’d looked her in those wild yellow wolf’s eyes more than once, fingers gripping the chain around her neck as they dragged her down into the kennel, but never had she lunged, sunk her teeth into their flesh. Never had they felt the sear of their nerves as their limbs snapped and twisted. 

They’d only seen her do it once, the first time, when she passed out on the floor and they didn’t know that the monster they found when they opened the door was the friend they were coming to see. They’d chased the wolf through the swamp, desperately trying to reach Lex’s phone, and they found it just in time to watch it tear the throat out of a frogger in the shallows, unable to suppress it. The police simply added it to the list of dog attacks in the area, and the locals kept their children in at night and loaded their shotguns to set by the door.

Sometimes she remembered what happened under the glow of the full moon. Sometimes she didn’t. They had a system - well, she did, it was just easier with Ash there now - steel bars and heavy chains, thick enough to hold a dire wolf in place for twelve hours. Those were for the clear summer nights when the sky sang its siren song inside her head, an inescapable celestial earworm. When the rain fell in winter and the moon stayed hidden, they would sit on the couch and Ash would watch tv with her head in their lap, running their fingers through her thick black fur.

They still had a few hours. Lex was getting itchy. Her foot was rocking against the coffee table as they drank, each lap occupied by a cat, the TV mumbling in the background.

“I’m gonna go fuck something up,” Lex announced, evicting the cat from her lap. “I can’t sit around and wait to wolf out. I’ll be back before night, though. Promise.”

Ash felt their heart jump. She did this every month, and every month they just remembered the dead man’s limp body in her mouth. “Okay,” they said.

She had an alarm watch on her wrist. They’d tested this method. It worked. So far.

They watched her pull on her jacket and leave in a burst of cold, wet air blowing in, but quickly dissipated by the heat indoors. She was off to cause problems, to steal something, to fuck with someone’s mind, something to occupy herself until the sun went down. Full moons made her restless. It made sense.

She went off to steal faces, while they sat at home and waited for her to return, their heart hammering through their chest for every long, agonizing hour. Because it was only so long before someone realized the thing that howled in the woods was their roommate and not the neighbour’s deer dog.

They had to trust her. She’d come home, she promised.

Their hands tightened around the cat-shaped spiked keychain on her car keys, heart beating a military beat in their ears as they walked down the road, away from the house, away from what was safe, what was known. An afternoon walk across the bayou to the McDonald’s for an early dinner was something to do, something to occupy their mind. Abject terror felt better than worry, sometimes. They wanted nothing more than to turn back and order pizza, but they’d walked too far now. They could hear the hum of tires over the metal drawbridge growing louder, battling for dominance with the cicadas screaming in the cypress trees. Better just keep walking, and prepare themselves to hear the same thing they always did when they went somewhere alone: what a nice Yankee accent, don’t hear too much of that ‘round here these days. Aren’t you living with the Thibodeaux girl? Somethin’ weird about her, but she’s nice enough when you see her. You seem nice, even if you’re from…where are you from? Chicago? Oh  _ cher _ , bless your heart. I bet you like how warm it is here.

It grated on them. It was getting hard to laugh it off, to jokingly apologize for not being born in the south, for not knowing what a four-lane was, for not knowing how to spell anything, everything. Sometimes they wondered why they stayed here, why their ID card said Louisiana now, then they walked into the living room where someone else was sitting, and they were reminded that the uncomfortable looks from their chest to their face were better than another night in a cold, empty apartment lying on a sheetless mattress on the floor.

They could hear bats flitting above when the cicadas waned, snatching up horse-sized mosquitoes above and beneath the bridge, growing fat on the blood of the residents by proxy. A breeze rustled through the trees, brushing the Ash’s neck like someone was breathing down their back. They spun, swiping out with the spiked keychain, stabbing nothing but air. The sky was clear above them, more stars than they could have imagined growing up in the city twinkling above. Their breaths grew short and shallow. It was just the wind.

They turned to keep walking and ran face first into something solid, dressed in a suit.

“Fancy meeting you here,” said a vampire’s voice.

Ash swung out with the keychain but Benvolio caught their wrist, twisting it away from him. His hands were ice cold, even though he was wearing gloves and his typical black duster. His grin glittered in the streetlights, fangs on full display.

“What do you want?” Ash tried to growl, but the tremor in their voice gave them away.

“I came to give you an opportunity,” Benvolio said, letting their hand go. “I’ve got a client in need of something very specific, and I know for a fact you’ve got one lying around somewhere.”

Ash’s chest tightened. Benvolio was no stranger, though there was no love lost. The head of an underground empire, the vampire had taken in Ash’s best friend after being cursed to turn to stone on accident, giving him a place to stay and a job to do as guardian of Benvolio’s domicile. Occasionally he’d swoop down and ask Ash to pick a few locks, swipe a bit of cash. The way he talked gave Ash the creeps, but he did pay decently well. They didn’t delete his number from their phone.

“What kind of opportunity,” they asked.

Benvolio grinned wider, his bottomless black eyes narrowed to slits. “I need a werewolf’s heart.”

Ash felt their breathing stop.

“I’ve heard through the grapevine that you’re living with one,” he continued. “I know you aren’t really a hitman, but the birdies also told me tonight is a full moon, and it turns out dogs and alcohol don’t mix super well. If you know what I mean.”

“You don’t even know if-”

“Actually, I do. I know pretty much everything about your bitch girlfriend. That she’s a shapeshifting werewolf, that she has a safeguard system for that time of the month, and also that she’s a raging alcoholic. If you bring silver anywhere near her she’ll smell it and know something’s up, but trust me, there’s not an addict on the planet who can resist one last hit before bed.”

There was something in his voice that made Ash’s skin crawl, more than it usually did. An admission of something, they didn’t know what. Knowledge he shouldn’t have. The fathomless gaze of a monster that couldn’t die.

“She’s not a werewolf, she’s a  _ rougarou _ ,” they said, stupidly.

“Even better,” he replied.

“She’s my friend,”

“She’s a sociopath.”

“So am I.”

“ _ Then kill her. _ ”

Death smiled down at them with wild eyes and all they could do was whimper. “I can’t.”

“Then I have no more use for you,” Benvolio said, and wrapped his hand around Ash’s throat before they could react.

Vaguely they heard the keys fall to the concrete as he lifted them up, inhumanly strong, feet no longer touching the ground. They clawed at him with bitten-off nails, thrashing, panicked. They kicked out with both feet and caught Benvolio in the face with the heel of one boot, but he barely reacted at all, just stared at them with cold, murderous eyes. They could feel their trachea collapsing, their breath coming in tight gasps, not enough air to scream, to call out for help. Their body moved on its own, unable to formulate coherent thoughts other than  _ I’m going to die, I’m going to die, I’m going to die- _

The blood pulsed thick in their head, blackness eating at the edges of the streetlight’s glow, the feeling of the cold steel guard rail against the back of their thighs. Benvolio’s voice from far, far away saying “It’s a shame, really,” then his fingers letting go. The feeling of one huge, choking gasp of air before hitting the water.

  
  
  


They’d always wondered what drowning felt like.

Now they knew.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
  


Lex got home just before dusk, throwing the clothes she’d been wearing in the burn pile for later, her neck popping uncomfortably as she shifted back to her usual face. It felt like pulling on silky pajamas after a long day, like the first sip of whiskey when she got home from work. It took years to get used to the change, to being suddenly taller, or shorter, or thinner, or fatter. You don’t think about how much even just one inch’s difference in the length of your arms matters unless you’ve misjudged the distance to something and smacked your hand painfully on it. She was good at making it seem natural, now. But there was still nothing like slipping back into her own skin.

Ash had texted her earlier, going get dinner. It was a little surprising, that they’d leave the house alone, but she was proud of them for being brave. These nosy old bats love to stick their noses in places it shouldn’t be, like her and Ash’s business. Are you two dating? How did you meet? He’s a little young, isn’t he? Oh, he’s not a he? Well I’ll pray for you on Sunday, hun.

She could feel her skin itching as the moon rose in the sky, small for now, but growing. She pulled off her underclothes, tossed them into the laundry and wrapped a towel around herself, just in case. She could smell the whiskey in the bottle before she uncorked it, her colour vision fading. One more shot. For the road.

She left the glass on the counter and disappeared into the trap-door that led to the turning room, feeling the alcohol hit faster, her body rapidly changing from human to canine. Her head light as she strapped in, making it just in time for her to lose the use of her thumbs.

The song of the moon rose in her ears, a soft tune that rose like an opera soprano’s high note that only she could hear, pulling her body apart and putting it together again in a new configuration. Ash would be home soon, and she could only hope it was an easy one.

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


She woke up on the floor curled up in a ball, every joint in her body cracking as she unfurled, stretched. The moonsong still echoed faintly but its power had lessened, though she’d have it stuck in her head until midway through the wane. She couldn’t remember the night before, but there were no new claw marks in the concrete, and Ash hadn’t had to tie her down. Uneventful. Good.

There was a dresser in the basement containing a lot of comfy sweatpants and t-shirts, the only things she could stand to touch her skin after transformation night, her entire body sensitive to the point of pain. Anything scratchier than jersey knit was like needles in her skin.

The house was cold when she climbed out of the basement, tender skin prickling against the breeze blowing in from her open bedroom door. She peered out, finding the living room empty, the windows still open from yesterday evening. Strange. Ash usually would close them before they went to bed, driven by a paranoia that Lex did not share, but respected and agreed with. Maybe they forgot. Maybe they were tired.

The clock on the microwave read 11:30, which meant it was 10:30, because she never bothered to change anything for Daylight Saving Time. She poured herself a scotch and inhaled a prepackaged everything bagel without bothering to split it or slather it with creme cheese. Transformation nights left her ravenous. She’ll eat most of what was in the fridge by the end of the day, and probably still make Ash grab pizza for dinner.

The whiteboard reminded her to buy cat food and her eyes automatically moved to the keyholder next to the door. Her keys were not on the hook where they usually were. God dammit, she’d put them down somewhere before she went downstairs and forgot again.

“Hey, Ash,” she said, knocking on their bedroom door. “Do you know where my keys went?”

No answer. She turned the knob and pushed the door open, looking pointedly at the wall in case they were indecent. “Hey,” she said again, but there was no acknowledgement. The room was empty, just as cluttered as always. A collection of notebooks and a coyote skull was on the bed. Clearly they left before she got up, probably to get coffee or something. One day she’d remember to get them one of the little plastic spike keychains like she had on her keys so they would stop taking hers and leaving her stranded.

It took her a minute to find her phone, still sitting on the coffee table where she’d apparently left it last night. The text from Ash saying they were going to get dinner that she’d seen but not acknowledged, then a call an hour later, presumably before she got home from her extracurricular activities.

She dialed their number. It rang twice before connecting. “Hey, dumbass, where are ya, I need my keys,” she said, not even waiting for them to say anything.

“Uh,” said a voice that was definitely not Ash’s. “Hello?”

Jealousy shot through her chest. “Hello? Who is dis?”

“This is Paige Rodrigues,” the voice said. “I found dis phone on the bridge last night.”

Well at least they weren’t sleeping around. “Oh,” Lex said. “It’s my roommate’s phone, I dunno where they ran off to but I can come get it. They done took my keys though so I’mma have to walk an’ it’s gon’ take a minute.”

“That’s fine, I can meet ya on da bridge,” Paige said. “I live like two minutes away.”

Lex cursed the weather the entire walk, a hoodie pulled around her shoulders to conceal her unsupported chest, unwilling to torture herself further with proper underclothes her eyes. She squinting behind sunglasses, still overly sensitive to light. Paige beat her to the bridge, unsurprisingly, standing casually against the handrail dressed in what appeared to be a snow jacket and long, thick jeans. Ash would have had something to say about that, being as it was barely fifty degrees outside. They never missed an opportunity to make fun of southerners’ lack of cold tolerance, which she was quick to turn on them when the temps touched 100 in the middle of August.

“Sorry ‘bout da wait,” Lex said, waving. “Ya live closer than I do I guess.”

Paige smiled. She was pretty in a soft, childlike kind of way. She was probably a freshman in high school, if that old. “Yer good,” she said. “Just glad ya called back an’ ya didn’t live in Shreveport or somethin’.”

“Yeah, makes it easy. I’m just down da road on da other side of da bayou.”

“I’m behind the Thai place,” Paige said. “On Thibodeaux.”

Lex laughed. “Dat’s my last name.”

“Dat’s everyone’s last name,” Paige said, smiling.

Lex shifted her weight to her other leg, the smalltalk starting to crawl up her back. “Well, thanks for bringin’ da phone. I’ll let ya get back to whatever you was doin’.”  
“Yep, see ya around!” Paige waved as she turned, heading back to her side of the bridge, hands in her coat pockets. Lex watched her go, committing her face and frame to memory, to use later if she needed. When she needed.

She was alone now on the bridge, the bayou flowing lazily beneath her, muddy and brown. She thumbed Ash’s phone open, she knew the code by heart. No messages. Missed alarm to wake up (times four.) That must have been pleasant for the poor girl this morning.

There was something bothering Lex, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Something prickling at the back of her neck, a little niggling of anxiety that always plagued her the day after a full moon. The fear of doing something she’ll regret.

She pushed it down. She needed to get home, to wait for Ash to return with her keys so she could go buy cat food.

As she turned to walk back something shiny on the ground caught her eye, caught between the rusty guard rail and the metal sign screwed to it that warned boaters to watch their heads. The glint of a silver key ring.

That crawling feeling grew as she reached down and hooked her finger through the loop, gently lifting a set of keys from where they had been caught, saved from being lost to the bayou forever by the large, cat-shaped spike knuckle keychain attached to them.

Two thoughts ran through Lex’s mind simultaneously. One: Well now she could drive the car to get cat food.

Two: Where the _ fuck _ was Ash.

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
  


The thing about drowning: you know it’s happening. For two agonizing minutes you’re conscious, choking on the water, lungs on fire. You can’t think, only act, your brain running on instinct alone, rational thought impossible. Everyone has seen it on TV - the flailing, the struggling to find the surface. If you’re lucky, you’ll find it, suck in life-giving oxygen, and live. If you aren’t, your body tries a last ditch effort: to hold its breath to keep the water out. But if there’s only water left to breathe when that reflex wanes, it doesn’t help much at all.

The last thing Ash remembered was the taste of the bayou and searing white-hot panic.

And then they could breathe.

Well. Not really  _ breathe. _ They opened their mouth and tried to suck in air, but nothing really happened. No sound. No rush of gas into their lungs. Their chest felt full but the pressure was gone. They sat in ankle-deep water, perfectly still except for the ripples that flowed out from them as they moved. They felt cold, but they felt dry. Had they dreamed it?”

“Another one dragged out of the water,” said a voice that lifted the hair on Ash’s arms. A familiar voice, one they’d heard before in their nightmares. “Such a shame.”

The direwolf’s voice came from everywhere as it stepped out of nowhere, huge paws silent on the surface of the lake. It looked down at Ash with empty, smoke-filled eyes, teeth peeking through its rotted skin. “Which God do you serve?”

“I...I don’t-” Ash stammered.

“Ah,” said the wolf. “The place you came from, I just assumed.”

“Where am I?”

The wolf smiled, its lips peeling back and revealing the skull beneath. “You’re dead, little one. Released from the mortal coil. Sleeping with the fishes.”

“I drowned,” they said. “Benvolio threw me off of the bridge and I drowned.”

“Lots of  _ rougarou _ in Louisiana, not so many vampires, despite what the picture-boxes want you to think.”

“He’s from Indiana,” Ash said. They felt strangely calm.

The wolf nodded. “That explains it. I’d go crazy and lust after human blood if I had to live there, too.”

“He wanted me to kill a  _ rougarou _ ,” they continued. “My friend. I live with her, but she hasn’t tried to do anything to me. He wanted me to take out her heart so he could sell it to someone.” They blinked. “I should probably get back to her and let her know. We may need to skip town for a few days.”

“Afraid that’s not happening,” the wolf said. “You’re dead, kiddo, remember. Nothing you can do.”

They felt a little annoyed, now. “But I need to let her know. She’s in danger.”

The wolf snorted. “Are you listening to me? You’re  _ dead. _ She’s on her own, like it or not. What’s done is done, you don’t get another chance. In like five minutes your atheist ass is gonna dissipate into dust and you’ll just stop existing altogether. I’m literally just here to make sure you end up in the right place.”

Ash thought for a moment. “Make a deal with me.”

“What?”

“In classical literature people make deals with death all the time. Make a deal with me.”

“Kid, you know those are just stories, right?”

“This is  _ my  _ afterlife; I’ll just invent a new you that isn’t such a dick,” they said, tartly. “Give me like a D í a De Los Muertos deal - I get to go back as a ghost or something until my name is completely forgotten, and once a year I get to talk to Lex again.”

The wolf studied them, huffing black smoke from between its teeth. “You aren’t Mexican.”

“My high school best friend is.”

“That does not give you permission to take his culture.”

“His mom painted my face every year and I was asked to put the wishes in the jar, too. It’s not mine, but I was allowed to share it. They’d want to see me on Halloween; it’s good enough.”

There was a sound like gritting teeth. “What can you offer me?”

Ash held out their hands. “Take my soul, my body, curse me, whatever you want. Can’t be worse than dying.”

  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
  


It would be faster to take a plane, but that would require money, and going through TSA, and speaking to people. Easier to go as the crow flies - literally. Wolves were traditional and the form forced on her during the full moon, but her kind could be whatever they liked outside of those supernatural nights. Trading smooth skin or thick fur for sleek black wings was easy. The flight wouldn’t be. But she had to know.

She’d only been here once, years ago, when Ash took her to meet their big buff high school friend who worked for some crime family in Indianapolis. Truth be told, she thought it sucked. It was a tiny, squat, ugly city in the middle of a cornfield. Boring. She declined to ever visit again.

Until now.

She didn’t stop as the sun started to set, her wings burning but she barely noticed. She barely noticed anything besides the shifting landscape beneath her, patchwork fields darkening, giving way to the lights on the highways snaking across the country. And up above, invisible to them all, was her.

The police dragged the bayou but found nothing. Ash never called. Never came home. They weren’t at their parents’. They weren’t at Toby’s. Their bed stayed unmade, the skulls unmoved. Lex populated the cups on the coffee table on her own. The police called it an accidental drowning and called it a day, their excuse for a lack of a body the gators or undergrowth or the speed of the water that day. They said they’d keep an ear out from downstream cities, but there was no conviction in their voices. They didn’t care about the woman in the house by the water with nothing but ghosts around her of the friend she’d only just begun to have, the flickers in the corners of her eyes, the smell of them as she poured herself another drink and stared at the television until her body collapsed with exhaustion.

She arrived at the manor at dawn, alighting from the air onto human feet, muscles screaming, eyes heavy. The air around her was silent, the birds and the bugs and the beasts in the woods stayed away from the house guarded by monsters carved from stone. The smell of death hung in the air, that special kind of scent of vampires.

“Get them back,” she said to the gargoyles standing over her, their cold empty eyes unblinking.

“I can’t,” said one of them in reply, shifting from his sentry position to look down at her. “If they’re dead, they’re dead, Lex.”

“You know dat aint’ true.”

“I can’t bring back the dead.”

“You know who can.” Her throat was raw. “Please.”

The gargoyle’s breath blew her hair around her face, his eyes closing. “Alexis-”

“I'll pay anything.”

“Even the lives of innocents?”

Long, long ago she’d heard a story about men who tried to turn coal into gold and couldn’t. Who tried to find the secret to eternal life and failed. Who sought to bring the dead back and  _ succeeded. _

“I’ve stole countless faces an’ even more lives. I have paid dat price twofold an’ I’d pay it again every single day if it meant I’d have them back.”

The statue looked at her for a long, heavy heartbeat. “It will take time to make one,” he said, finally. “But I will try.”

  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
  


She could feel the lives inside but none of those were the one she wanted, and so she put the souls between canine teeth and crushed them, and no liquor burned like the philosopher’s stone as the shards touched her tongue and she breathed their name to whatever god would listen.

  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
  


It was an odd sensation, intangibility. Passing their fingers through the posts of the porch, stepping through the wall into the living room, feet silent on the floor, but they still avoided the boards that creaked anyway. It felt strange to be back, even if they weren’t. To look in their bedroom at the mess that they left there in their haste, softened by the settled dust. Funny how they’d expected to be back. How they left that pile of laundry in the corner. Notebooks they’d only half filled. Unfinished projects they thought they’d complete. How little it meant now. Relics of a person who was no longer.

It turned out messages in the glass and whispers on the wind weren’t real. You couldn’t summon a ghost with an ouija board or by saying “Bloody Mary” in the dark three times. Chanting in a circle or lighting incense or folding your hands at the edge of the bed, all were useless. Death doesn’t tell you this when you make your deals. That the things you need to say won’t get said, no matter how much you scream. 

Toby had always said the devil was a liar.

The only way to touch the living was to hold the souls of thousands in your hand, compressed into stone, trading theirs for one, but never yours. A terrible price to pay for selfishness disguised as altruism.

Ash stood in the middle of their room and looked around and what was theirs, slowly realizing that this was all over, that it was all gone, and there was nothing they could do. No way to speak to Lex, no way to tell her she was hunted. Nothing to do but watch the monsters tear her heart from her chest and place it in a jar. They couldn’t even catch her when she fell, couldn’t even see her in the afterlife, whichever one she chose.

It sunk in slowly, then all at once, and when their knees hit the floor they made a sound.

  
  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
  


It worked. It worked it worked it worked but something was wrong. Ash stared at her with terror in their face as her heart fell into her feet and through the floor.

“What did you do?” they breathed, and she felt like she wasn’t in her own body as their voice hit her ears.

“What did you do, Alexis? What did you do?”

“I brought you back.”

Terror was etched across their face. “ _ Why? _ ”

“I couldn’t-”

Ash backed away from her on feet that made contact with the floor. “Do you know how they make those? Do you know what you’ve done?”

“I didn’t care-”

“What if I did? Did you think of that? Did you not think that I’d just accepted that I’d been murdered and that was the end of it? Did you think about whether or not _ I  _ wanted you to slaughter a city to bring me back?”

“Murdered?”

“We all have to go sometime, even if it means getting thrown off a bridge by a vampire.”

She could feel her teeth grind in the skull that didn’t feel like hers. “ _ Ce putain couillon _ . I’m gonna kill him.”

“If you do I’m gone.”

She’d never heard Ash sound like that. Their voice like teeth bared, the narrowness to their eyes. Angry. Truly angry.

“Ash…”

“You don’t get to enact revenge for me when I’m right here.”

“But he killed you.”

“And then you killed even more to bring me back. If I have to forgive you, I can forgive him too. I’m here now, for better or for worse, so just let it go, Lex.”

“Just because you forgive him doesn’t mean I have to. You don’t know what it felt like to lose you.”

Something flashed in their eyes. “It would have happened eventually.”

“Not this soon. And I could have stopped itt.”

Ash’s voice was a growl. “ _ Then why didn’t you _ .”

“You didn’t want it.”

“You never asked.”

“Did you really want to be like me? Chained to a wall until you learn to control it? Don’t you think I was trying to keep you from that? I cared enough about you to spare you even if I know your life is thousands of years younger than mine.”

“You don’t get to sit on your high horse then get mad that I die like a fucking human,” Ash said. “My job is dangerous, more dangerous than yours is because you can change your body to look like anyone you want. This was inevitable and you know it.”

“You weren’t supposed to die like that.”

“Then how was I supposed to die? If Benvolio didn’t do it, who would have? The police, during a master heist? Was I supposed to bleed out as you cradle my body in your arms?  _ How the hell was I supposed to die, Alexis? _

“Shut up,” she said.

Ash’s face was flushed, their fists clenched, standing in the kitchen doorway, seconds from turning through the back door and disappearing forever. “That’s your answer. You don’t deserve to be upset about my death when you can’t even justify how any other way would have been better. You knew I would die eventually; you just want someone to blame.”

“I don’t need to blame anyone else,” Lex snarled. “I  _ know _ it would always be my fucking fault.”

  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
  


Benvolio was used to strange things on his doorstep. Witches, vampires, all manner of monsters that crawled out of the cornfields looking for either a piece of him or his pie, one. But a slavering half-transformed werewolf was new.

“Wow, you’re making my job way easier,” he said, holding the door open dramatically with one hand. “How did you know I was looking for one of you.”

She growled with a wild animal’s voice, eyes full of a scorned woman’s hellfire. “Dis is the last time I see you,” she snarled. “Or I tear yer cold dead heart out with my teeth.”

“It’ll take a lot more than your teeth to kill me, babe,” Benvolio said, sneering.

“I know,” she said, reaching into her waistband behind her. “Dat’s why I brought dis.”

Benvolio could feel it tingling in his skin as she pressed the barrel of the gun to his forehead. Hot and metallic, like liquid sunlight, coating the tip of the bullet loaded into the chamber, a familiar sight, feel, smell. Digital cameras and aluminum mirrors hid him in plain sight these days, but despite his riches you’ll only find stainless steel in the kitchen drawers. 

She reached up with her other hand and pulled the slide of the gun back, discharging the live round. The silver-coated bullet landed on the ground with a metallic ping, rolling to a stop against Benvolio’s boot.

“Stay away from us,” she said. “Or next time I pull the trigger.”

“It would be a welcome respite,” Benvolio said. “I’ve been alive  _ oh  _ so long.”

“You an’ me both.”

He stood there on the porch, silver burning through to his toes as he watched the wolf woman fly off on crow’s wings, unable to stop the little crooked smile on his face.

“I could learn to like her, if she weren’t like she is,” he said. “I supposed there’s more wolves in the woods to hunt.”

The statue said nothing as it reached down and lifted the bullet in its claws, putting it away right next to its identical twin.

  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
  


“I’m glad you’re home,” Ash said softly as Lex stepped through the door.

“I ain’t kill him,” she grumbled, locking it behind her.

“Thank you.”

She didn’t reply. They could feel the wrath radiating off of her, pent up energy intended for tearing bones out of flesh but instead kept inside. It’ll burn through her if she didn’t get it out. They’d seen it before. If she didn’t vent, it may as well have been a full moon again, the wolf going feral. They’d have to tie her down, but things still slipped through their fingers if they weren’t concentrating. The curse they’d been given was something they had to learn to live with, and they’d only been half-alive for a few days.

The entire liquor cabinet was already unloaded on the counter, no bottle more than half full. She poured a double serving of whiskey and downed it all in one go. Ash heard the glass splinter as she slammed it back onto the counter, stronger than she usually was. She poured another glass and drank that, too, not a drop leaking through the crack.

Ash stood in the living room waiting for the moment when she disappeared downstairs, to let her have a moment of privacy before they followed her down and took care of whatever the black wolf told them needed doing before she could no longer speak. They’d done this dance before, the routine familiar to their hands. Lex stood in the doorway to the kitchen and looked from the door to the couch to the fireplace to the ghost that stood amidst it all, her face unreadable.

“It’s hard to look at you,” she said.

“I’m sorry, I’m not very good at staying corporeal yet.”

“No, not like that, like…” she swallowed thickly. “You’re dead.”

“Yeah.”

“I mourned you.”

“But you brought me back.”

“An’ now I don’t know how to deal with dat. I saw you everywhere but couldn’t bring myself to move anythin’ you touched. Now yer standin’ there in the living room like dat never happened, like everythin’ around ya ain’t remind me of when you were actually alive or when you were actually dead. It’s just...hard.”

“I know how you feel,” they said softly. “My things feel like they belong to someone else, so I don’t touch them even if I could.”

It hung there in the air between them, turning it sticky and thick in their lungs. Familiar like a summer rain, terrifying as a hurricane.

Ash’s eyes met hers. “What are we going to do?”

Lex’s face was strained as she walked past them to her room. They followed her inside, expecting to see her opening the hatch, slipping beneath the floorboards. Instead she was pulling a well-worn suitcase out of the closet and laying it open on her bed.

“Are you going on a job?” Ash asked.

“No. I’m leavin’.”

The waver was clear in Ash’s voice. “Leaving?”

“Yer invited, ya know,” she said. “I ain’t stoppin’ ya even if I could.”

“Where are you going to go?”

Lex shrugged. “Wherever I feel, I guess. Drive ‘til I get sick of it. Stay in hotels. Find somewhere new to call home. Maybe I’ll move to France.”

“What about the cats?”  
“Comin’ with, obviously.”

“You’re going to abandon the house?”

“Nothin’ here anymore but ghosts.”

“But there’s evidence here,” Ash said. “What if they find it during the repossession and track you down?”

The house they stood in was, if not a hundred years old, nearly there, the wood floors scuffed with generations of boots and dogs’ claws, the walls pocked with nails that once hung family photos, heirlooms, now mostly bare. The rooms had seen so much life and so much death, held so many bones beneath the boards. What kind of soul does a house hold once its people have locked the doors? Is it better to burn down the work of the hands that made it, or allow it to be sealed behind drywall and new paint?

Was it fair to let the history stay there, was it fair to take it away? 

The wolf and the ghost were gone by the time the neighbours saw the flames, the memories held in the walls released into the sky with the smoke. 

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me @catouatche (tumblr) and @katouatche (twitter) for more!


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